Knowledge Adventure® Delivers Reading Readiness Software; New Adaptive Early Reading System Designed to Help Educators Manage K-2 Students' Individual Literacy Needs

Business Wire, Nov 28, 2005

TORRANCE, Calif. -- Knowledge Adventure, the award-winning developer of educational software products, today announced the availability of its Knowledge Adventure Reading Readiness program. The newest addition to the Knowledge Adventure Solutions product line, Reading Readiness is a research-based, adaptive early reading system designed to help educators manage their students' individual literacy needs.

"Providing elementary students with the foundation of language skills they need to become successful readers is one of the most important tasks teachers undertake," said Leslie House, senior vice president of product development for Knowledge Adventure. "The Knowledge Adventure Reading Readiness system is ideal for teaching language skills to pre-readers and early readers because it both engages and motivates students with fun, interactive multimedia lessons, while offering teachers a highly effective way to reinforce concepts and skills and track individual results."

Knowledge Adventure Reading Readiness is a unique combination of standards-based lessons, classroom management tools, and school-to-home materials that give teachers the adaptive learning tools needed to build phonemic awareness and phonics skills for children in primary classes.

Customizable Lessons

Central to the design of the Knowledge Adventure Reading Readiness system are the interactive lesson sets that address many of the curriculum goals for language and early literacy identified in the federal Reading First program. With instruction organized around specific objectives, Knowledge Adventure Reading Readiness includes more than 70 lessons addressing some 30 early reading skills including letter and sound identification, word building, spelling, and decoding.

"Lessons in Knowledge Adventure Reading Readiness include auto-leveling, and the software embodies a mastery learning approach to instruction," said House. "This differs significantly from drill-and-practice programs in that students are measured systematically throughout their use of the product so that complete mastery is attained and demonstrated by each student."

Classroom Management Tools

In addition to instructional content, Knowledge Adventure Reading Readiness offers a set of classroom management tools to help teachers do everything from track and guide student progress to communicate with parents. One feature is the Teacher Control Panel which allows teachers to, among other things, organize the classroom and assign lessons in ways that are most appropriate for students' individual needs. Other classroom management tools include detailed progress reports, pre- and post-lesson analyses, multi-sensory lesson plans, and suggested classroom projects.

School-to-Home Tools

Recognizing the impact of parental involvement on early literacy success, Knowledge Adventure Reading Readiness includes specially designed take-home readers, activity sheets, CDs and other skill-building materials to extend learning fun. Detailed progress reports and parent tips, available in English and Spanish, further foster parental involvement.

"Parents very often need and want clear direction to help develop early literacy skills," said House. "The Knowledge Adventure Reading Readiness at Home component motivates and supports parents who want to be partners in developing key language skills which provide the building blocks necessary for young students to begin to read with confidence."

The Knowledge Adventure Reading Readiness program is available for purchase in four versions: single user, lab pack, site license and network. The software is available on both Windows and Macintosh platforms. For more information, please visit http://www.KnowledgeAdventureSchool.com.

About Knowledge Adventure

For more than 20 years, children's software pioneer Knowledge Adventure(R) has set the standard in creating premium educational products for use in both the classroom and the home. With award-winning brands including JumpStart(R), Reading Blaster(R) and Math Blaster(R) found in one of every five American classrooms, Knowledge Adventure understands the needs of teachers and provides educators with the supplemental, content-rich materials needed to meet and exceed today's education standards. Teacher tested and trusted, Knowledge Adventure software has helped millions of students build and strengthen essential learning skills.

A subsidiary of Knowledge Holdings Inc., the company is based in Los Angeles.