School is Out, Learning Apps Are In: New Ways to Keep Reading and Math Skills Sharp During Summer

NEW YORK, May 10, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Every summer, millions of kids suffer brain-drain and lose up to three months of math and reading skills gains they had achieved during the school year. This loss of skills, known as the "summer slide," affects all children who don't practice their math and reading skills during the summer months, and it can result in a lot of time wasted on reviewing last year's lessons when kids go back to school. 

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To counter the "summer slide," Scholastic, the global children's publishing, education and media company, has launched three new, free apps that can help students keep their skills sharp – while still having fun!

• The Scholastic Reading Timer app for iPhone, iPad and Android smartphones helps kids keep track of how much they're reading;
• The Storia eReading app available for iPad and PC (with additional platforms rolling out soon) comes with FIVE FREE eBOOKS and helps kids read and interact with favorite children's eBooks;
• Sushi Monster for the iPad supports the development of math fact fluency for addition and multiplication facts.

To Keep Kids' READING Skills Sharp:

With the Scholastic Reading Timer kids can set personal reading goals, using the built-in stopwatch to reach their target number of reading minutes. Kids can then log their daily minutes and keep track of their cumulative time spent reading each day, week and month. From May 1 to August 31, kids can also register for the Scholastic Summer Challenge and use the app to log their reading minutes to help break the Scholastic world record for summer reading.  To keep kids motivated, there is a virtual prize wheel kids can spin to earn and collect fun rewards. Parents can use the app to check their kids' reading progress, and they can access book lists for all ages and daily reading tips provided by the literacy experts at Scholastic.

Storia®, the FREE eReading app specifically designed to support kids' reading, also helps parents monitor kids' reading progress. Storia, which comes with FIVE FREE eBooks, offers access to a wide variety of age-appropriate titles for children from toddler to teen. The selections are carefully curated to offer a range of children's digital picture, chapter and interactive eBooks on a variety of topics and reading levels that are presented in a way that is true to the original print versions. A selection of Storia eBooks are enriched with fun, educational activities including vocabulary games, comprehension activities and fun video content as a reward when kids finish the book.

On Storia, parents can set up individual bookshelves for each of their children, purchase new eBooks, and track a child's reading progress through each book. Parents can find out which words the child learned, how many pages they read, and how long their child spent reading each day. 

To Keep Kids' MATH Skills Sharp:

Scholastic has also introduced the Sushi Monster™ app, a fun new game to practice, reinforce, and extend math fact fluency. Sushi Monster helps students build reasoning strategies for addition and multiplication by having kids choose numbers to reach a target sum or product. With correct answers, kids earn points, stars, and trophies, and unlock new levels. Sushi Monster consists of seven addition and five multiplication levels, and kids can replay each round with new numbers. The Sushi Monster game was created by leading educational game developers at Scholastic for FASTT Math® Next Generation, an adaptive, computer-based program for schools that helps students meet their Common Core fluency goals.

"Research has shown that teachers often spend four-to-six weeks every fall re-teaching skills students have lost during the summer," said Francie Alexander, Chief Academic Officer at Scholastic. "But by reading a few books every summer and playing math-based games like Sushi Monster, kids can keep their skills sharp."

For more information about Scholastic, visit our online Media Room: http://mediaroom.scholastic.com

SOURCE Scholastic Inc.