Weekly Reader Unveils Multimedia Redesign and Expansion

NEW YORK, April 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Weekly Reader, the leading publisher of educational magazines and a division of Reader's Digest Association, Inc., today announces a sweeping multimedia redesign of its website, magazines, and other curriculum-based products.

The website, www.weeklyreader.com, offers new navigation, design, and features. Other components of the brand's multimedia evolution include an energized logo, a new look and feel to its K-12 print publications, the introduction of Digital Editions, and an exciting new web-based reading-comprehension product, Weekly Reader Connect. These interrelated resources on multiple platforms combine the depth of print content with the power of multimedia interactivity. The redesign and new digital elements of the Weekly Reader brand accomplish a dual mission: appealing to the current generation of students as well as meeting the needs of today's educators.

As a leader in education reaching more than 7 million students annually, Weekly Reader continues to deliver timely content that connects with students. Beyond its award-winning print publications, Weekly Reader now incorporates technology in innovative ways that meet the rapidly changing demands in education. The newly remodeled website provides students and educators alike with easier navigation tools and online access to all K-6 titles. With its clean, bold new design, www.weeklyreader.com delivers themed teaching packages, weekly current events stories, free webinars for teachers, and downloadable activities for students.

Parents and teachers have trusted Weekly Reader as an educational resource since the company was founded in 1902. The new multimedia platforms include redesigned print publications that will premiere this fall showcasing vibrant images, captivating material, and engaging educational activities. The print publications will continue to create age-appropriate content for grades K-12 that is lively, appealing, and stimulates a love of learning.

"Now more than ever, Weekly Reader provides extra elements of innovation and interactivity that students crave," said Ira Wolfman, Senior Vice President, Editorial, at Weekly Reader. "The redesign demonstrates how fresh and relevant we are, by offering quality content in the most compelling and contemporary formats. Our lively new logo and the redesign of digital and print platforms were created specifically to bridge our fast-growing suite of products and formats."

The new Digital Editions, available through subscription for grades K-6, provide captivating, grade-specific multimedia content aligned with state and national standards. Delivered at the same time as the classroom print issues, Weekly Reader Digital Editions add exciting video and audio clips, slide shows, and read-aloud functionality, plus pre-reading questions, vocabulary practice, and interactive quizzes. All of this dynamic content can be viewed at home or at school on projectors, interactive whiteboards, laptops, or personal computers.

In addition, the recently launched Weekly Reader Connect enables educators to teach 21 crucial reading-comprehension skills -- the Concepts of Comprehension ® -- in a clear and explicit fashion. This new reading-comprehension program is available exclusively for school-wide usage. Its multimedia elements are designed to inspire students and motivate them to read. This multi-sensory approach to reading instruction also helps teachers provide differentiated instruction, which is increasingly important in schools across the nation. Through Weekly Reader Connect, learning comes to life with sight, sound, and motion that grabs students' attention and gives teachers powerful tools to help students understand the materials they read.

ABOUT WEEKLY READER

One of the great innovative forces in American educational publishing, Weekly Reader has been creating exciting, curriculum-rich supplemental materials for more than 100 years. Our unique digital products and 12 award-winning classroom magazines give teachers tools that help them achieve their goals while inspiring students and igniting their love of learning. Every year, Weekly Reader materials reach more than 200,000 teachers and 7 million students from Pre-K to grade 12. In 2010, the company introduced Weekly Reader Connect (www.wrconnect.com), an online reading program for students in grades 1 through 6. WR Connect consists of interactive, whiteboard-ready multimedia news units that are presented in concert with a reading-comprehension framework, the Concepts of Comprehension,© that supports the teaching of key reading skills. Weekly Reader also includes Weekly Reader Custom Publishing, Weekly Reader Curriculum Publishing, and database products Facts for Learning (www.factsforlearning.com) and Weekly Reader Express, distributed by netTrekker, Inc. WRPG is part of the Reader's Digest Association, Inc. For more information, visit www.weeklyreader.com.

Weekly Reader's Reading-Comprehension Curriculum

Weekly Reader magazines and Web content are built on a framework of skills that provides teachers with a systematic, explicit approach to teaching reading comprehension throughout the elementary school grades. Called Concepts of Comprehension©, this research-based curriculum, developed by the nonprofit Urban Education Exchange, builds students' understanding of what they read and helps them to move successfully from one academic year to the next. The curriculum is presented through lively, timely nonfiction text that engages and excites students.

Weekly Reader materials also support vocabulary instruction and the expansion of background knowledge -- thereby providing teachers with resources in the three research-based components of reading-comprehension instruction: inferential thinking skills, vocabulary, and background knowledge. All of this rich content is supplemented with follow-up activities and assessments.

SOURCE Reader's Digest Association/Weekly Reader