BOSTON – Global education leader Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) has acquired Curiosityville — an online personalized learning environment that helps children ages 3-8 learn through playful exploration and discovery. The acquisition will be a core element of HMH’s early childhood education offering, which represents a significant growth area for the Company.
Using lovable characters, games and activities, Curiosityville bridges a connection between parents, students and educators, and lays a strong foundation for core learning areas such as creative expression, problem solving, collaboration, and other critical cognitive and academic skills for school and for life. The acquisition of Curiosityville also includes its proprietary data collection and analytics engine, the Learning Tree, which provides real-time information on individual learners and personalized recommendations for learning, both online and offline.
“Curiosityville fits perfectly with our mission and commitment to cultivating curiosity and a passion for learning in young children,” said Linda Zecher, President and CEO of HMH. “We place enormous value in the impact of early childhood education, both at home and in pre-school settings, and believe that the incorporation of Curiosityville into our own robust offering for young learners will enable us to deliver a unique, engaging, research-based solution to parents and educators alike."
Founded by award-winning writer and creator of hands-on learning resources Susan Magsamen, Curiosityville is built upon evidence-based research around child development and critical learning periods, an understanding of the best ways to teach critical skills, and the role of parent engagement. Fueled by brain science research, every aspect of Curiosityville—from the activity and game development to the sound effects, animation, and archetypal characters—is built for optimal child development and learning.
“Curiosityville was created to bring together a collaborative and interactive community of families, educators and experts in the field of early learning,” added Susan Magsamen, Founder and CEO of Curiosityville. “With HMH, we have the opportunity to extend the reach of Curiosityville even further.”
Parchman, Vaughan & Company LLC advised management and the board of Curiosityville with regards to this transaction.
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About Houghton Mifflin HarcourtHoughton Mifflin Harcourt (NASDAQ:HMHC) is a global learning company with the mission of changing people’s lives by fostering passionate, curious learners. Among the world’s largest providers of pre-K–12 education solutions and one of its longest-established publishing houses, HMH combines cutting-edge research, editorial excellence and technological innovation to improve teaching and learning environments and solve complex literacy and education challenges. HMH’s interactive, results-driven education solutions are utilized by more than 50 million students in over 150 countries, and its renowned and awarded novels, non-fiction, children's books and reference works are enjoyed by readers throughout the world. For more information, visit www.hmhco.com.
About Curiosityville
Curiosityville is a personalized learning world for young children, families and educators, combining playful activities, lovable characters, and innovative technology that adapts content and gives parents real-time feedback as children builds essential skills. Curiosityville supports teachers with its proprietary Teachers Helper to assess, assign and track children's progress as well as communicate with parents. Launched in August 2012, Curiosityville is the recipient of nine national awards, including a rare perfect score by Common Sense Media (2012 and 2013), the 2012 Media of the Year Award by Creative Child Magazine, the 2012 Best in Class Award by Interactive Media Awards, a Mom’s Best Award, and the Parent Tested Parent Approved Award.
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