Practicing Math Skills Turns Into a Trip to the Arcade With Popular Funbrain Math Games Now Featured on myMathUniverse From Pearson

Free Middle-Grades Math Site Adds New Channel

NEW YORK – Nov. 6, 2012 – Practicing math will now seem like a trip to the arcade for middle school students when they visit the new Funbrain^™ channel on myMathUniverse, a free site developed to support Pearson’s award-winning middle-grades math program, digits. The original home of the bestselling “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” by Jeff Kinney, Funbrain is a fun and safe website with learning-based games. The games from Funbrain’s Math Arcade that are featured on myMathUniverse are specifically designed to reinforce middle-grades math skills.

Middle school sports fans can practice math with the Funbrain games, “Math Basketball” and “Math Soccer,” making hoops and kicking goals with each correct answer. With the channel’s “Inkster” game, they will need strong math skills to avoid angry crabs and snapping piranhas as they navigate the interactive environment. “Moon Rocks” is an outer- space way for middle school students to practice their math skills and memory while avoiding dangerous asteroids.

“Building strong math abilities is critical to students’ success in school, college and career,” said Mike Evans, Pearson’s senior vice president for math. “However, nobody said that learning math can’t be fun. These great arcade-style games from Funbrain offer middle school students a chance to practice and reinforce what they are learning while having fun online in a safe, secure environment.”

myMathUniverse is free to students everywhere – whether or not they are learning with the digits program. digits is the first middle school mathematics core curriculum that leverages technology to personalize student learning and optimize class instructional time. Written entirely to the Common Core State Standards, digits integrates lesson planning, homework management, intervention and assessment, all within a user-friendly design that encourages class collaboration via interactive whiteboards. digits combines a comprehensive math curriculum, powerful best practices in teaching and easy-to-use technology so teachers can deliver personalized instruction effectively and save valuable time. digits streamlines instruction through point-of-need resources that are intuitive for teachers, and allows them to address the individual needs of every student – in and out of class.

Other myMathUniverse channels include:

• Math Doesn’t Suck: This channel from math expert and actress Danica McKellar features videos to help students with homework and confidence-building, as well as brain-strengthening math problems that can be downloaded and – in some cases – submitted to their teachers for extra credit.
• The Rappin’ Mathematician: Outrageously fun videos created by 2009 California Teacher of the Year Alex Kajitani with hip, cool rap songs about core math concepts.
• Alleyoop: Cool online activities for learning math concepts and free tutoring from math experts.
• Manga High: A collection of casual online math games developed using the Japanese manga style of animation that is popular with today’s kids.
• digits Stuff: Fun videos and other cool stuff from the middle-grades math program.
• Virtual Nerd: Students can chose their own path through math content with step-by-step tutorials and a dynamic whiteboard on this channel built just for them.

Visit myMathUniverse at www.myMathUniverse.com and learn more about digits at www.digitsmath.com.

About Funbrain (http://www.funbrain.com)

Funbrain, created for kids age preschool through grade 8, offers more than 100 fun, interactive games that develop skills in math, reading and literacy. Since 1997, kids, teachers, librarians and parents have enthusiastically turned to Funbrain for its free educational games, online books and comics. Teachers, librarians and parents can trust Funbrain to provide a fun and safe gaming environment that bridges learning and entertainment. Funbrain is published by Family Education Network, a part of Pearson (NYSE: PSO).

About Pearson

Pearson, http://www.pearsoned.com, has as its mission to work side by side with states, districts, teachers, students and parents to ensure that every child is prepared for college and career (NYSE: PSO).

For more information:

Kate Miller, kate.miller@pearson.com – 800.745.8489