Greenville, WI, August 20, 2009 —School Specialty, Inc. an education company providing innovative and proprietary products, programs and services for the pre-K–12 market has acquired AutoSkill, a technology-based reading and math intervention company.

Based in Ottawa, Canada, AutoSkill expands School Specialty’s educational technology offerings, and builds upon the company’s market position in K-12th grade reading and math intervention with an emphasis in grades 3-9. With annual revenue of $10 million, AutoSkill will become part of School Specialty’s Intervention segment. The company is best known for its researched-based Academy of Reading® and Academy of Math® software, which help educators develop intervention strategies to build student fluency.

“We are very pleased to have AutoSkill join the School Specialty family,” said Chief Executive Officer David J. Vander Zanden. “The company brings us highly regarded instructional technology offerings for our reading intervention business, opens the door to new growth opportunities for us in math intervention, and provides our customers with an effective Response to Intervention (RTI) option for their stimulus funds.”

“Academy of Reading is an excellent addition to our EPS line of reading intervention programs,” noted Rick Holden, President of School Specialty Intervention, School Specialty’s educational publishing segment. “And Academy of Math provides us with a strong lead-in to providing math intervention resources for our customers.”

To help teachers and schools maximize their investment in AutoSkill programs, expert support is provided to teachers and schools through technical and instructional assistance, implementation strategies, motivational best practices and tools to use in the classroom.

About School Specialty Intervention
School Specialty Intervention (formerly EPS) publishes research-based intervention materials, grades K–8. Our print and technology resources meet the varied instructional needs of students possessing language-based learning disabilities or are at-risk for reading failure. The integrity and rigorous methodology we ascribe to are represented by successful, long-standing programs such as Wordly Wise 3000®, Explode The Code®, Primary Phonics®, and S.P.I.R.E.® .

School Specialty Intervention remains focused on developing quality content for the intervention market. Our tradition of working in collaboration with educators will continue, to ensure we provide content that has made our name synonymous with value, reliability, and above all else, excellence. We are a member of the School Specialty family. School Specialty is an education company based in Greenville, WI that provides innovative and proprietary products, programs, and services to help educators engage and inspire students of all ages and abilities to learn.

*EPS (Educators Publishing Service) is now School Specialty Intervention.  
For more information, please visit www.epsbooks.com/transition

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