About Super Why

Super Why! is the first preschool series designed to help children learn to read through interactive story adventures. Each 22-minute episode features a team of fairytale superheroes who soar into classic storybooks and use their unique reading-based powers to find answers to everyday preschool problems. With curriculum guidelines established by the National Reading Panel, Super Why! teaches preschoolers key literacy skills, including letter identification, decoding, encoding, spelling, and reading comprehension.

Each 24-minute reading adventure begins in Storybrook Village, a magical 3D world hidden behind the bookshelves in a children's library. The Storybrook Village is the home of your child's favorite fairytale characters, including Red, from Little Red Riding Hood; Pig from The Three Little Pigs, Princess from The Princess and The Pea, and Whyatt, the curious younger brother of Jack from Jack and The Beanstalk who discovers he has the power to fly inside books to find answers to his questions.

In every episode one of the friends encounters a problem with another Storybrook Village character. As in real life, the problems require preschool social skills to resolve. Whyatt calls his fairy tale friends to their secret clubhouse, named "The Book Club," where they transform themselves from mere mortals into literacy-powered super heroes. Using their super powers, these Super Readers fly inside books. The adventure begins as the Super Readers find out how famous fictional characters handled similar situations (Why is the big bad wolf so big and bad?). They talk to fictional characters from the story, play reading games and activities to overcome obstacles, search for Super Letters, and practice such key skills as letter identification, word decoding, spelling, vocabulary and comprehension. Super Why, who has the Power to Read can even change a story ending and save the day!

Learning with Super Why

Super Why takes an innovative approach to learning by promoting reading as a powerful, meaningful experience for children aged 3 to 6 years old. The interactive format encourages kids to actively participate in each episode. As they watch Super Why they are completely absorbed in the adventure of the story while engaging in challenging games and activities. This format enables children to practice the critical skills that they need to learn to read. The unique balance between using interactivity to practice key literacy skills and telling engaging stories that make literacy relevant to children's own lives is a powerful new way to teach reading.

The literacy skills and interactive games are backed by scientific research and testing by a panel of experts. The educational goals of the show are:

• To create lifelong readers who are motivated to read for pleasure and information, empowering them to use books as a resource for life.
• To help young children, ages 3 to 6, to learn key reading skills as identified by the National Reading Panel, including: Emerging Literacy Concepts; Phonemic Awareness; The Alphabet Code; Fluency; Text Comprehension; Spelling; Written Expression/Handwriting and Motivating Children to Read.
• To offer literacy strategies so that kids know how and when to use these skills.
• To provide practice with reading skills through interactive stories and literacy based games.
• To teach abstract, high order reading skills such as making inferences through theme comprehension.
• To stress to parents and caregivers the importance of reading to their children and the huge impact that reading will have on their children's success in life.
• To extend the Super Why literacy content and approach beyond television to surround children with literacy learning opportunities in all aspects of their lives.