Scholastic Launches Storyworks® Jr., the 33rd Classroom Magazine Title
Teachers call for new language-arts resource for Grade 3, following the extraordinary success of Storyworks magazine
New York, NY – April 14, 2016 – Reflecting the intense need for highly engaging and meaningful reading resources in elementary classrooms, Scholastic today announced the launch of Storyworks® Jr., a new language-arts magazine created especially for third-graders, which is a critical year for solidifying children’s reading skills. The new magazine builds on the 22-year brand success of the original Storyworks magazine, a multi-genre magazine and digital resource for Grades 4-6, which has seen a 198% increase in circulation over the past five years. Storyworks Jr. brings the total number of Scholastic classroom magazines to 33, serving students in pre-K to grade 12.
For more information about Storyworks Jr. and to subscribe, visit http://storyworksjr.scholastic.com.
Now a global publishing and education company, Scholastic was founded with the publication of a single classroom magazine in 1920. Today, Scholastic classroom magazines reach nearly 25 million students in classrooms across the country – achieving a 15% growth in circulation in the past three years. The mission of the magazines, to explain the contemporary world to young people through engaging, exciting and relevant content, has remained the same over the years.
Storyworks Jr. is developed specifically for the unique needs of younger developing readers and features engaging cross-genre content, from simple informational texts to rich narrative nonfiction stories, plus short fiction, poetry, plays and paired texts. To enable this content to be used for skills development and test readiness, the resource comes with a wide range of support materials, including videos, audio versions of articles, activity sheets, formative assessments and other resources. These are designed to help teachers meet the most pressing language arts objectives.
“The growing success of Storyworks has given us a true window into the changing needs of third grade teachers, who are now telling us they want a version of Storyworks just for them,” said Lauren Tarshis, Vice President, Group Editor of Language Arts, Scholastic Classroom Magazines. “Third grade is a high stakes year for literacy, for students and for their teachers. And teachers don’t simply want generic content. They want important and inspiring stories that will build students’ knowledge and spark curiosity as they build key skills. Over the past 20 years of creating Storyworks, we have developed a close partnership with hundreds of teachers across the country. They tell us what they need, and we do our best to deliver. We believe that Storyworks Jr. is perfectly calibrated for the specific needs of grade three classrooms.”
Tarshis continued: “We’ve just recently reached our 1 million reader milestone for Storyworks, and in a time when other publishers are contracting, we’ve never before been in greater demand. It’s never been a more challenging time to be a teacher. We strive to create content and resources that are powerful teaching tools, but also add excitement and joy to the classroom.”
Features of Storyworks Jr. include:
- 6 issues per school year with 32 pages of language-arts content.
- A Teacher’s Guide with lesson plans and instruction suggestions with each issue.
- Lexile-leveled content that is engaging and age-appropriate.
- Support materials that build foundational and comprehension skills.
- Powerful differentiation tools that make the content accessible to readers of all levels: audio versions of feature stories, online access to lower-Lexile articles and activity sheets, videos to provide engagement and background knowledge, and anchor texts.
- Access to Storyworks Jr. Digital, an online version of the magazine with videos and support materials. Teachers can also participate on Storyworks Playbook (http://playbook.scholastic.com), an online community where educators can share tips and inspiration for using Storyworks and Storyworks Jr. with their students.
For more information about Scholastic Classroom Magazines, visit http://mediaroom.scholastic.com/ClassroomMagazines.
Contact: Kristen Joerger, 212-389-3343, kjoerger[@]scholastic.com
