Headsprout(R) Reading Comprehension, an Online Critical Thinking Program, Available for Home Use Beginning January 12th, 2010

SEATTLE, Jan. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Headsprout®, a Seattle-based education technology company whose mission is to be a major force in eliminating illiteracy, today announces the launch of the first of its kind critical thinking program, Headsprout Reading Comprehension. The online program was offered to school districts nationwide starting October 5, 2009 and beginning January 11, 2010, parents can purchase the program at www.headsprout.com, for their kids to use right in the comfort of their own homes. Headsprout Reading Comprehension, an adaptive, online reading comprehension program, teaches children ages 7+ how to comprehend what they read and master critical thinking skills in only 25 hours of online instruction.

"Headsprout has found the most effective way to teach reading comprehension to children and we are excited to offer the Headsprout Reading Comprehension for home use to parents and their children for the first time beginning today," says Dave Anderson, CEO of Headsprout. "Headsprout's research-based new program does more than just provide practice answering reading comprehension questions; it also provides explicit instruction in reading comprehension strategies that students can apply to read for meaning across all subject areas in school. Headsprout Reading Comprehension will help children learn the skills and strategies necessary to be successful in high-stakes state reading comprehension exams while developing higher order thinking skills that will last a lifetime. Our program accomplishes all of this while still being a fun, engaging experience for your child!"

Headsprout Reading Comprehension includes:

• 50, 30-minute online lessons teach children strategies to master the four main components of comprehension:
  • Finding facts
  • Making inferences
  • Identifying themes and the "main idea"
  • Learning vocabulary in context
• A proprietary vocabulary acquisition system that makes learning new vocabulary fast and easy.
• Individualized, adaptive instruction, not just practice answering questions, as children are actually taught how to comprehend and the reason for learning comprehension.
• Increasing passage complexity as the program progresses to include more complex sentences and longer passages, more answer choices and more variation in questions. Passages and vocabulary teach a variety of subjects and include: tables of contents, headings, maps, and measurement: scales, rulers and charts.
• Automated progress reports that show what your child is learning.

Headsprout launched its award-winning first program, Headsprout® Early Reading, in 2001 and it is currently used in school districts in every state. The scientific development process undertaken in designing Headsprout Early Reading tested the program with hundreds of beginning readers, one at a time. If the children did not meet the established learning objectives, the program was revised and re-tested until each student met the objectives. Headsprout Reading Comprehension was similarly scientifically developed and tested with a wide range of learners, from high performing to struggling children.

About Headsprout

Headsprout was founded in 1999 by a team who has spent the last 30 years improving education for young children. Headsprout's mission is to be a major force in helping eliminate illiteracy in young children in this country, by making its patented instructional technology, the Sprout Learning Technology, available for children everywhere via Internet-delivered instruction. Headsprout is a privately held company based in Seattle, WA. For more information about Headsprout, please visit www.headsprout.com.

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SOURCE Headsprout