Archipelago Learning Launches Reading Eggspress

Archipelago Learning (NASDAQ: ARCL), a leading subscription-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider of education solutions, today announced the launch of Reading Eggspress, a web-based reading and comprehension program for grades 2-6. Reading Eggspress expands on Archipelago Learning’s popular Reading Eggs program which targets early readers ages 4-8. Reading Eggspress is designed to build reading and comprehension skills for more mature elementary-aged readers.

Reading Eggspress provides a wide range of learning resources, lessons, motivational games, e-books, and reporting – all presented in an interactive and virtual environment. Students can explore the Stadium, Comprehension Gym, Library, Apartment, and Mall to earn a variety of learning rewards. Teachers can access instructional study units, teaching notes, student worksheets, teacher demos, and units for interactive whiteboards through an extensive Teacher Toolkit.

"Reading Eggspress is designed to continue the mission we started with Reading Eggs,” said Tim McEwen, chairman, chief executive officer, and president of Archipelago Learning. "Once children learn how to read, it’s important to keep them engaged in and enlightened by reading. This product offers teachers a way to do this by leveraging a channel that already appeals to them – social networks and virtual worlds. If we can relate the core principles we’re hoping students will learn to the areas that already interest them, then we create a mutually beneficial and relatable teaching environment.”

The Reading Eggspress Stadium offers head-to-head contests that test students’ skills in spelling, usage, vocabulary, and grammar. The Comprehension Gym includes 200 interactive comprehension lessons, each complete with pre-reading activities that model and teach comprehension strategies. Reading passages are followed by a set of comprehension questions that assess students’ factual, inferential, and textual understanding.

The Reading Eggspress Library features more than 600 e-books from leveled illustrated chapter books to full-color fiction and nonfiction, as well as a range of classics. Each e-book includes an online reading quiz. Rewards for students culminate in the Apartment and Mall, where they can view and use earned rewards, including golden eggs, trading cards, and avatars. Reading Eggspress is developed by the same proven team of experienced teachers, educational writers, animators, and web developers that brought Reading Eggs to schools and parents. Currently used in approximately 2,200 schools nationwide, the product suite will now feature Reading Eggspress as a combined unit with Reading Eggs. Schools that already subscribe to Reading Eggs have access to Reading Eggspress with their current subscription.

More information and demonstrations of Reading Eggspress are now available online at www.studyisland.com/readingeggspress.

About Archipelago Learning

Archipelago Learning (NASDAQ: ARCL) is a leading subscription-based, software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider of education products used by approximately 14 million students in nearly 38,700 schools throughout the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Our comprehensive digital supplemental product suite uses technology to transform education. We make rigorous learning fun, engaging, accessible and affordable. For more information, please visit us at www.archipelagolearning.com.

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