Holt Adds Live Ink Reading Help to Online Textbooks in Biology and Social Studies

Holt Adds Live Ink Reading Help to Online Textbooks in Biology and Social Studies

Reading Format has Demonstrated Success in Increasing Scores on Standardized Tests

ORLANDO, Fla., Jan. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Holt, Rinehart and Winston announced today that the Live Ink(R) Reading Help is now available in the online versions of Holt textbooks including Holt Biology and the entire line of Holt Online Learning social studies curricula. This technology promises to help individual students, of any reading proficiency, to increase comprehension of the subject matter in their textbooks.

Live Ink Reading Help conveys visual cues to sentence structure through a patented method of re-formatting text in a visually friendly, cascading phrase style that helps students become better readers. Research in reading proficiency among all students using Live Ink, including English-language learners and the gifted, found a significant increase in Terra Nova Reading Proficiency test scores during a year-long study.

"This is one of the most exciting developments in reading comprehension of recent years, and now Holt is the first and only textbook publisher to put this research into use," said Judy Fowler, Holt president. "Holt is dedicated to developing educational products that improve learner outcomes and help our schools boost student performance on standardized tests; we believe that Live Ink-enhanced text will significantly improve learning for all students."

Live Ink was developed by researchers at Walker Reading Technologies, Inc. who reviewed 50 years of published research in cognitive neuroscience, linguistics, visual perception, information processing, and reading psychology to develop fundamental algorithms for processing text into a format that is easier for the eyes to scan and for the brain to comprehend. With the support of an Innovation Award from the US Department of Education, research at the Center for Cognitive Science, University of Minnesota, and Denver University School of Educational Technology validated that Live Ink-enhanced text does improve academic performance and reading proficiency.

Readers have their choice of formats -- standard, block-paragraph or the Live Ink format -- with a single click on the online textbook, which opens a window with the modified text layout.

Holt holds the exclusive rights to use the Live Ink technology.

About Holt, Rinehart and Winston


Holt, Rinehart and Winston is a leading publisher of textbooks and educational materials for grades six through 12 and is part of Harcourt Education, a global education provider serving students and teachers in PreK through grade 12, adult learners, and readers of all ages. The Harcourt companies are Harcourt School Publishers; Holt, Rinehart and Winston; Harcourt Achieve (including the Rigby, Steck-Vaughn, and Saxon imprints); Harcourt Assessment; Classroom Connect; Harcourt Canada; and Harcourt Trade Publishers. For further information, please call (800) 992-1627 or visit www.hrw.com or www.harcourt.com.

Harcourt Education is part of Reed Elsevier Group plc. (www.reedelsevier.com) which is a world-leading publisher and information provider. It is owned equally by Reed Elsevier PLC (NYSE:RUK) and Reed Elsevier NV (NYSE:ENL).


Source: Holt, Rinehart and Winston

CONTACT: Jennifer Harrison, +1-916-716-0636 or jennifer@JHarrisonPR.com,
for Holt, Rinehart and Winston; or Pam Pate of Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
+1-512-721-7812 or ppate@hrw.com

Web site: http://www.hrw.com/


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