Total 610 words used.
1500Kelime.com Platform was brought to life by Adel Kalemcilik under the academic consultancy of New York University faculty member Prof. Dr. Selçuk Şirin and his team, based on the results of the “Children's Vocabulary Research Through the Eyes of Parents and Teachers” commissioned by Akademetre by Adel Kalemcilik. The triggering factors were as follows: Turkey is the OECD country with the lowest schooling rate for 3-5 years old, the number of preschool students decreased by 25% due to the pandemic. In addition, not supporting the development of children in the extremely critical preschool period, when 90% of their brain development is completed, was a very important starting point for the project.
According to academics and literature studies, the number of words preschoolers are exposed to is associated with their later IQ and academic achievement. In other words, pre-school intelligence means vocabulary. Preschool children's vocabulary significantly affects their future creativity, literacy skills, mathematical ability and social skills, and rich vocabulary indicates rich individuals. Adel Kalemcilik 1500Kelime.com Platform, which was brought to life based on these facts, aims to enrich the vocabulary of preschool children and carry them to a bright future.
First, we conducted "Children's Vocabulary Research Through the Eyes of Parents and Teachers" with a total of 800 people, consisting of parents and teachers, in 12 different provinces representing Turkey, in order to investigate the awareness of parents and teachers about vocabulary in Turkey. This research has been the most comprehensive field research ever conducted on this subject in Turkey. According to the results of the research, the awareness of the importance of vocabulary should increase among parents and teachers. We shared our research results with the public in the webinar we organized by conducting an informative communication before the launch, and we aimed to create an extra awareness on this issue.
Then, in April 2021, we launched the 1500Kelime.com Platform with a virtual press conference and an extensive PR / communication programme. We also organized a 5.5 hours live stream children’s festival with the volunteering participation of celebrities, influencers and idea leaders on Instagram, to spread the word even more!
With an integrated communication plan; A total of 516 news reflections and 50 million reach were achieved.
There were 308 thousand sessions, nearly 3 million page views, 187 thousand unique visitors and 11 thousand memberships in total on the web platform. The application was downloaded 21 thousand times and the average interaction time was over 52 minutes.
The 1500Kelime.com Platform was designed with Prof Dr Selçuk Şirin, an academic and writer at New York University, and his team, as a result of a preparation process of approximately one and a half years, based on both the basic pre-school skills in developmental psychology and the achievements determined by the Ministry of Education. Accordingly, 1500 words were determined in 70 different categories. All content on the platform has been fictionalized by considering the contextual relationships of different words to make sure that children will have the chance to learn the usage of many other words besides the 1500 words offered on the platform.
Thanks to the activity files on the platform that can be downloaded and easily printed at home, it is aimed that children spend quality and interactive time with their parents while empowering their learnings! On the 1500Kelime.com Platform, there are gamification elements like “honey points” and badges, too, to make sure that the motivation for learning is maintained.
The platform was designed completely free for everyone to access through the website and the mobile apps for iOs and Android was also appreciated and supported by non-governmental organizations such as Anadolu Foundation and TOÇEV.
