FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Information:
Curtis Kuhn, Director of Marketing: curtiskuhn@lena.org
Louisville, CO — August 7, 2025 — LENA, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to transforming lives through early talk, is proud to announce it has been awarded a $229,248 grant from The Moody Foundation. This two-year grant will improve teacher-child interactions in early childhood education in central, eastern, and western counties of Texas using LENA Grow.
Through LENA Grow, early childhood teachers gain data-driven insights to create more responsive relationships and foster language, literacy, and social development for children from birth to five years. This funding will help LENA leverage data-driven coaching to improve teacher-child interactions, a key marker of quality in early childhood education and quality rating and improvement systems, like Texas Rising Star.
“This generous support from The Moody Foundation’s M-Pact Fund is a critical investment for young children in Texas and their teachers,” said Jen Rhodes, Philanthropic Impact Manager for LENA. “It will accelerate and individualize learning outcomes by providing more early educators with actionable data to improve their practice and student outcomes in a way that works for the unique needs of each Texas community.”
As part of The Moody Foundation’s M-Pact Fund initiative, LENA will also participate in collaborative learning opportunities with other grantees to advance best practices in early childhood education statewide.
LENA Grow has proven measurable impact on interactions in classrooms, teacher confidence and retention, and children’s kindergarten readiness. Since launching in Texas in 2018, LENA Grow has reached over 3,000 children and 700 early childhood teachers and demonstrated a 52% increase in turns per hour for children who started out experiencing less talk than the national median.
With this new funding, LENA anticipates working closely with the early childhood ecosystem to increase interactions and improve early childhood quality for the youngest Texans and their teachers.
For more information about LENA Grow and its impact, visit www.lena.org.
About LENA
LENA is a national nonprofit on a mission is to transform children’s futures through early talk technology and data-driven programs. Used by educators, researchers, and clinicians all over the world, LENA measures a child’s language environment and provides vital feedback to improve child outcomes through responsive interactions. For more information, visit LENA.org.