FamilyEducation.com Relaunches Online Reading Tool for Preschool Children Determines Reading Ability

From school newsletters, to expert advice on television, many parents find themselves overwhelmed with tips on how their children can improve. FamilyEducation.com, partnering with the National Center for Learning Disabilities, is offering a new version of "Get Ready to Read!," a research-based screening tool for testing a four-year-old child's reading ability prior to entering kindergarten.

Boston, MA November 3, 2006 -- From school newsletters, to expert advice on television, many parents find themselves overwhelmed with tips on how their children can improve. FamilyEducation.com, partnering with the National Center for Learning Disabilities, is offering a new version of "Get Ready to Read!," a research-based screening tool for testing a four-year-old child's reading ability prior to entering kindergarten. The 20-question tool, once completed, is scored automatically, indicating if a child's pre-reading skills are weak, strong, or in between. In addition to the score, the tool provides activities and resources to improve kindergarten reading skills.

The new version of "Get Ready to Read!" doubles the amount of child-friendly, printable, family activities and parenting resources aimed at improving a child's reading skills. These one-on-one literacy skill builders include learning about how books work; becoming familiar with print; familiarity with letters; and writing and linguistic awareness.

"Get Ready to Read!" is also available at FamilyEducation.com in Spanish as Descripción de iPrepárate a leer!, until now only available in print form.

"Assessing children's potential for learning is key to their future and continued success," said Jess Brallier, Publisher and General Manager, Family Education Network. "Working with the National Center for Learning Disabilities, we provide proven and helpful learning resources to our large audience of educators and parents, including those who are Spanish speaking."

About Family Education
Launched in 1996, Family Education, is an online publisher of learning-based content for parents and kids. Parents turn to Family Education to find practical guidance, grade-specific information about their children's school experience, strategies to get involved with their children's learning, free email newsletters, fun online learning based games, and entertaining family activities.

About Pearson Education
Educating 100 million people worldwide, Pearson Education (www.pearsoned.com) is the global leader in educational publishing, providing scientifically research-based print and digital programs to help students of all ages learn at their own pace, in their own way. Virtually all students in America learn from a Pearson program at some point in their educational career. The company is home to such renowned publishing brands as Pearson Scott Foresman, Pearson Early Learning, Pearson Learning Group, Pearson Digital Learning, and the Family Education Network. Pearson Education is part of Pearson (NYSE: PSO), the international media company. In addition to Pearson Education, Pearson's primary operations include the Financial Times Group and the Penguin Group.