ARLINGTON, VA, November 10, 2011 – Adding to its lineup of successful children’s educational apps, PBS KIDS today announced the release of the new SUPER WHY Alpha Boost! App for iPhone and iPod touch. The new app, available now on the App Store, is based on SUPER WHY, the award-winning hit preschool series from Out of the Blue Enterprises, which helps kids build critical literacy skills through immersive and entertaining storybook adventures.
With its “super party” theme, SUPER WHY Alpha Boost! is the third app from the SUPER WHY series, joining SUPER WHY (the #2 top grossing app in both the “games: kids” and “games: educational” categories on iTunes) and SUPER WHY Paint. Like the series, the new app focuses on key literacy building skills like letter recognition, phonemic awareness and using letters to form words.
“SUPER WHY’s first two apps have been incredibly well-received so far; the award-winning original SUPER WHY App was named one of the best iPhone/iPad apps for kids by Parenting.com,” said Jason Seiken, Senior Vice President, Interactive, Product Development, and Innovation, PBS.
“Research has consistently shown that SUPER WHY helps children learn to read,” said Lesli Rotenberg, Senior Vice President, Children’s Media, PBS. “A recent study* showed that the original SUPER WHY App helped kids build literacy skills, such as rhyming and sentence completion. We are continuing to study the impact of educational content across multiple platforms on helping kids learn, particularly since we know that all children learn in different ways. SUPER WHY Alpha Boost! is our first arcade style preschool-age app, so we’re excited to see how this engaging style impacts learning for young children.”
SUPER WHY Alpha Boost! Features In SUPER WHY Alpha Boost!, children can play as their choice of character – Super Why, Princess Presto, Wonder Red or Alpha Pig, and “Alpha Boost!” to a party high above Storybrook Village. With over 100 party-themed words and five kinds of parties, “Alpha Boost!” provides hours of fun that reinforce letter recognition and letter sounds. Players search the skies for “super letters” needed to complete the party words and travel to the celebration. By tilting the iPhone or iPod touch left and right, players catch floating letters to form the words (or for fun they can pop balloons to fuel up and boost higher into the sky).
The SUPER WHY Alpha Boost! App is available for $2.99 from the App Store on iPhone or iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore.
To learn about all PBS KIDS apps, visit PBSKIDS.org/mobile.
Images of the SUPER WHY Alpha Boost! App can be found on PBS PressRoom.
PBS KIDS mobile apps have experienced great success and have been downloaded more than 1.4 million times. With a transmedia approach, PBS KIDS is increasingly serving children wherever they live, learn, and play – through mobile devices, as well as on TV, online, in the classroom, and through a new line of educational toys.
* Rockman et al: “PBS KIDS iPod App Study: Findings and Outcomes,” 2010.
About PBS KIDS
PBS KIDS, the number one educational media brand for children, offers all children the opportunity to explore new ideas and new worlds through television, online and community-based programs. For more information on specific PBS KIDS programs supporting literacy, science, math and more, visit PBS.org/pressroom, or follow PBS KIDS on Twitter and Facebook.
About Out of the Blue Enterprises
Out of the Blue Enterprises is dedicated to developing a groundbreaking portfolio of individually-targeted children’s entertainment properties under the direction of a proven management team led by Co-Founders Angela C. Santomero, M.A. developmental Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University and a Creator of the preschool entertainment phenomenon, Blue’s Clues, and Samantha Freeman, MBA from Harvard Business School and former Nickelodeon entertainment and toy industry executive. The company creates breakthrough, interactive and curriculum-based entertainment concepts that span a variety of viable platforms, including television, video, publishing and consumer products. In doing so, Out of the Blue stimulates the minds of kids and families, involves them in fresh and original ways and elevates their educational entertainment experiences to a whole new level.
CONTACTS:
Maria Vera, PBS, 703.739.3225 / mvera@pbs.org
Caitlin Melnick, 360 Public Relations, 617.585.5775 / cmelnick@360publicrelations.com
Alison Grand, Grand Communications (for Out of the Blue), 212.584.1133 / alison@grandcommunications.com