LeVar Burton Brings The New Reading Rainbow To Today's Classrooms With The Launch Of Skybrary School
A Groundbreaking Digital Library to Increase Reading Frequency and Engage Young Learners
LOS ANGELES, March 2, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- LeVar Burton's RRKidz, Inc., home of the beloved children's brand, Reading Rainbow® releases a new educational digital library especially for early elementary school students and their educators. Delivering on the promise made in its record-breaking Kickstarter campaign, the company introduces Reading Rainbow Skybrary® School as an effective tool to close the reading gap among children in this country, and to deliver a single platform of resources that helps develop life-long learners everywhere.
Skybrary School offers a rich multimedia resource filled with close to 1,000 fiction and non-fiction books, newly produced video field trips hosted by LeVar Burton, and standards aligned themed lesson plans developed by educational specialists specifically for Skybrary School. This Netflix-like learning service is based on Reading Rainbow's award-winning Skybrary Family digital library, yet features a powerful new teacher dashboard, Common Core aligned content and easy to use management tools.
"Teachers devote their lives to giving students the tools needed to succeed in reading and we want to make sure we are doing the same for them," said LeVar Burton. "With Reading Rainbow's Skybrary Family and now Skybrary School, we are offering a comprehensive solution to assist both educators and parents in providing engaging and relevant content to develop children's literacy and learning skills."
Working with acclaimed publishers such as National Geographic, Britannica, and Teacher Created Materials, Skybrary School's digital collection of children's literature enables students to discover books that meet their interests and reading level. Each book supports emerging to fluent readers by offering audio narration from acclaimed professional actors under Burton's personal supervision, bringing the stories to life in the true Reading Rainbow tradition.
In addition, the service features over 200 educational video field trips hosted by Burton. Here, students join Burton at exciting destinations such as inside The White House, peeking inside the Mars Rover at NASA, all the way to Israel, behind the scenes at Cirque Du Soleil, and in the Grand Canyon. These newly produced videos connect the stories students read with real life experiences, and introduce them to the world in a way that only Burton and Reading Rainbow can.
Skybrary School further extends the learning with 40 standards aligned, themed lesson plans inspired by the books and videos in the library. The supplemental lessons enhance any instructional program with flexible online and offline activities. For example, "Big Thinker Questions" that follow each book are open-ended, allowing students to respond with their interpretation of the content or to discuss differing points of view. The program's blended learning approach builds student's knowledge and develops their vocabulary, comprehension, critical thinking and writing skills.
Skybrary School is available as an easy-to-use web-based subscription service with on demand access to read and learn anytime, anywhere. The added bonus of serving as the ideal school-to-home platform enables parents, siblings, or friends to join in the experience. In addition, the library grows with exciting new books and videos added to the service every week.
Thanks to the legions of fans that contributed to the Kickstarter campaign, RRKidz, Inc. is giving Skybrary School to 10,000 classrooms nationwide for free.
"For more than three decades, LeVar Burton and Reading Rainbow have encouraged a passion for reading and provided opportunities for children to engage their curiosity," said Mark Wolfe, RRKidz, Inc. co-founder and CEO. "In 2012 we brought the same trusted curation of children's content to the digital generation with Skybrary Family, and since then more than 35 million books and videos have been enjoyed by kids. With Skybrary School, we are offering educators, home school parents and after-school programs our service tailored just for them."
For additional information on Skybrary School and Reading Rainbow, please visit www.ReadingRainbow.com.
About RRKidz, Inc. and Reading Rainbow®
The multi-award-winning Reading Rainbow® children's launched in 1983 to encourage kids to read, by bringing books to the television screen. Over the next 26 years, actor/director LeVar Burton (also known for iconic TV roles as Kunta Kinte on "Roots" and Geordi La Forge on "Star Trek: The Next Generation) hosted all 155 episodes, inspired millions of people to love reading, and dedicated his life to promoting literacy and the love of learning in children everywhere.
In 2012, RRKidz, Inc. reimagined the iconic brand for today's digital families and launched the enormously successful Reading Rainbow App. RRKidz, Inc. has since launched numerous enriching products to children and their parents, including LeVar's first children's book, The Rhino Who Swallowed a Storm. The mission of RRKidz, Inc. is to instill a passion for learning in "Every Child, Everywhere"- at home and in the classroom. Reading Rainbow® and its logo are registered trademarks of Western New York Public Broadcasting Association (WNED-Buffalo) and used with permission. ©2015 RRKidz, Inc.
SOURCE RRKidz
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