Subscription content service engages young learners with personalized content recommendations
NEW YORK, May 20, 2016 — (PRNewswire) — Global learning company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), announced today that its interactive content service Curious World™ is now available on Apple TV. The service will be accessible on the newest generation Apple TV device, released in late 2015. The new offering extends availability of Curious World's multimedia platform, making its ever-growing library of playful learning content accessible on three screens for one subscription price.
Curious World offers children an expansive collection of games, videos and eBooks mapped to key learning areas. Parents are encouraged to be active participants in the learning experience; through the "parent dashboard," parents can track their children's progress, learn more about their interests and even see recommendations for how to extend the learning journey through offline activity.
With Apple TV, Curious World takes parental engagement yet one step further. By transferring classic children's books to the television screen, complete with vibrant illustrations and audio capabilities like read-along functionality and sound-effects, Curious World creates a new model for family "story time" and encourages togetherness. Content is simple to explore and organized into kid-friendly categories including Animals, Cooking, Crafts, Space, Wheels, eBooks and Videos. The experience also provides additional viewing suggestions after each eBook or video based on their interests. Initially, only the videos and books from the mobile version will be available on Apple TV, with games to come later this year.
In addition, Curious World has recently introduced new features that make personalization, discovery and navigation within the app even easier, including a robust recommendation engine and enhanced search functionality. Using an intuitive and dynamic algorithm, the recommendation engine draws upon a child's progress and interest in key subject areas and serves up fresh, relevant content for future exploration.
Curious World's extensive library includes close to 1000 titles, including originally produced games, original video series and books, as well as licensed titles from best of breed partners, and it continues to grow. The app's content is curated and created by HMH's internal development team of education experts and award-winning creative partners such as Bix Pix and CloudKid, and also includes licensed programming from leading kids' content providers like National Geographic, Storybots, Caspar Babypants, PBS Kids and Young Rembrandts.
"Curious World encourages parents to share in their child's learning journey," said CJ Kettler, Chief of Consumer Brands and Strategy, HMH. "With the launch of Curious World on Apple TV, our goal is to expand traditional conventions around 'story time' by offering another layer of family engagement. We recognize that parental involvement is key in early learning, and Apple TV offers another opportunity, beyond mobile devices and tablets, to cultivate a trustworthy, safe learning digital environment that balances screen-time with activities that families can enjoy together offline as well."
All content within Curious World aligns to eight key learning areas (science, math, language and literacy, health and wellness, creative expression, social emotional, executive function, and family community). The content offering is designed to give kids a balanced learning experience across these essential learning areas, and provide parents with the confidence that programming will be educational, relevant and fun to their young learners.
Curious World is a subscription-based experience for kids aged two to seven. The app can be downloaded for free from the App Store�nbsp; with sample content and features. Access to the full customized content experience is available for only $7.99 per month or $64.99 per year. The companion site, where parents can learn more about their child's personal learning journey, can be found at www.curiousworld.com.
About Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (NASDAQ: HMHC) is a global learning company dedicated to changing people's lives by fostering passionate, curious learners. As a leading provider of pre-K–12 education content, services, and cutting-edge technology solutions across a variety of media, HMH enables learning in a changing landscape. HMH is uniquely positioned to create engaging and effective educational content and experiences from early childhood to beyond the classroom. HMH serves more than 50 million students in over 150 countries worldwide, while its award-winning children's books, novels, non-fiction, and reference titles are enjoyed by readers throughout the world. For more information, visit www.hmhco.com.
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Curious George®, created by Margret and H. A. Rey, is copyrighted and trademarked by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. IPhone and IPad are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc. Curious World™, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt™, and HMH® are trademarks or registered trademarks of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Forward Looking Statements
This news release may contain certain statements that are not historical facts, including information regarding our intentions, beliefs or current expectations concerning, among other things, our results of operations, financial condition, liquidity, prospects, growth, strategies, the industry in which we operate and potential business decisions. Those statements constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from the results expressed in or implied by our forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, changes in state and local education funding and/or related programs, legislation and procurement processes; adverse or worsening economic trends or the continuation of current economic conditions; changes in consumer demand for, and acceptance of, our products; industry cycles and trends; conditions and/or changes in the publishing industry; and other factors discussed in our news releases, public statements and/or filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent Annual and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q. We undertake no obligation, and do not expect, to publicly update or publicly revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
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Leah Riviere
Manager, Corporate Communications
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
617-351-5020
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