Houghton Mifflin Co. News Release - 11/12/02

California Schools Overwhelmingly select Houghton Mifflin Reading To Meet State and Federal Requirements

BOSTON, Mass. - November 12, 2002 - Houghton Mifflin has earned an extraordinary 80% market share in California's 2002 reading textbook adoption. Houghton Mifflin Reading: A Legacy of Literacy was one of two reading series approved for use in California, and was selected by more than 300 school districts, including San Francisco, San Diego and Fresno Unified.

Approximately 55% of California schools have adopted a new reading program in 2002, and the remaining 45% will adopt in 2003 and 2004. It is estimated that $150 million will be spent in 2002 on new reading textbooks in California.

"California sets the bar for reading excellence, with the most stringent standards in the nation," said George Logue, Executive Vice President, School Division, at Houghton Mifflin. "We are very proud of our reading program and are pleased that so many schools chose Houghton Mifflin to help them meet their goals."

The California language arts textbook adoption requirements map directly to the requirements outlined by federal No Child Left Behind legislation. Both California and Reading First require programs based on scientific research.

Houghton Mifflin's success in the stringent California adoption makes its reading program a clear favorite for other states; it has already been adopted by schools in thirty-seven states across the country.

"States that choose a program like Houghton Mifflin Reading have taken a significant step towards complying with Reading First requirements," said Phyllis Hunter, member of the National Literacy Advisory Board and nominee to President Bush's National Institute for Family Literacy.

Houghton Mifflin's Legacy of Literacy and The Nation's Choice are being used by schools in Washington, D.C.; Chicago, Illinois; Orange County (Orlando), Florida; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Davis School District (Salt Lake City), Utah; Seattle, Washington; and Prince George's County, Maryland.

Program efficacy is essential for approval of Reading First grants, and Houghton Mifflin's is one of the few reading programs that have been proven by independent research to be effective in teaching children to read

Since 1997, Houghton Mifflin's reading program has been the subject of a comprehensive, scientific research study conducted under the auspices of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). The largest third-party efficacy study of reading development, the NICHD Early Interventions Project focuses on the impact of various instructional approaches on primary students' literacy growth. Preliminary findings released thus far focus only on program effectiveness in kindergarten and first grade, and show that students using Houghton Mifflin reading programs consistently did well when measured in the critical beginning reading skills of letter naming, letter-sound identification, phonemic awareness, letter-word identification, passage comprehension, and spelling compared to four other reading programs. (More information about this study can be found at eduplace.com.)

During the same period, Houghton Mifflin has been tracking the results of the district-administered Stanford Achievement Test (SAT 9) across the Washington, D.C., schools participating in the NICHD study, as a separate measure of students' reading performance. SAT 9 data confirm the efficacy of Houghton Mifflin reading programs. Between 1997 and 2001, all six schools using Houghton Mifflin programs showed improvement in reading performance as measured by the SAT 9. They had an average increase of 17.2 percentage points in the number of students scoring at Basic and Above, compared to 5.0 percentage points for the other schools participating in the study.

About Houghton Mifflin
Boston-based Houghton Mifflin Company, a unit of Vivendi Universal, is one of the leading educational publishers in the United States, with over $1 billion in sales. Houghton Mifflin publishes textbooks, instructional technology, assessments and other educational materials for elementary and secondary schools and colleges. The Company also publishes an extensive line of reference works and award-winning fiction and non-fiction for adults and young readers. Additionally, Houghton Mifflin offers computer-administered testing programs and services for the professional and certification markets. With its origins dating back to 1832, Houghton Mifflin today combines its tradition of excellence with a commitment to innovation. The Company's web site can be found at www.hmco.com.

CONTACT:
Collin Earnst
Vice President, Communications
Houghton Mifflin Company
617-351-5113
collin_earnst@hmco.com