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Showing posts with category English Language Learners Show all posts >
BrainFit Studio Accelerates English Learning with Brain Fitness
- November 22, 2011 by Cheryl Chia
BrainFit Studio is a Singapore-based network of learning centers designed to build brilliant brains and keep them fit. More than 8,000 children have passed through its classes over the past 10 years accelerating their learning, building fitter brains, and achieving continued academic success.
Five Brain Pillars
BrainFit Studio has designed a total brain fitness training program that builds five brain “pillars”:
- SMART Moves enhances the Sensory Motor Pillar
- SMART Vision strengthens the Visual Pillar
- SMART Focus develops the Attention Pillar
- SMART Emotions builds the Socio-Emotional Pillar
- SMART Listening (the Fast ForWord® program from Scientific Learning) optimizes the Auditory Pillar
SMART Listening, SMART Vision
In May 2011, BrainFit Studio launched the first of its four BrainFit Classrooms in Singapore. BrainFit Classrooms provide brain fitness training in fee-based learning centers to students from 4 to 12 years old who seek to improve their English language learning.
The threefold English learning course curriculum is aligned with the Singapore Ministry of Education’s English Language Syllabus, brain fitness training activities, and the Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant™ products. Students learn via a blended approach including both instructional contact time and online learning. Just six months in, students are already showing improvements, including an increase in school examination grades.
BrainFit Studio’s latest offering, the Brainy Programme for preschoolers, was launched in September 2011. BRAINY SAM and BRAINY TAD are two modules which, using an early childhood education approach, bring little ones through BrainFit Studio’s hallmark SMART programs.
BrainFit Studio has eight BrainFit Studios and ten school collaborations across Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. The work of training fitter brains continues each day through these centers, with parents and teachers reporting significant changes and improvements in their children.
BRAINY SAM and BRAINY TAD are trademarks of BrainFit Studios.
Related Reading:
Scientific Learning Around the World
Unlocking the Potential of English Language Learners
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Categories: Brain Fitness, English Language Learners, Fast ForWord
Longitudinal Study Shows Significant Fast ForWord® Gains Endure Over Time
- October 6, 2011 by Melissa Agocs
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Every spring, the Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests, abbreviated CRCT, are administered to students in Georgia. The CRCT is designed to measure how well students acquire the skills and knowledge described in the Georgia Performance Standards.
Students are tested in reading, English/language arts and mathematics. This summary will concentrate on the reading results from the Clarke County School District in Georgia. The CRCT is given every spring to all students in grades 1-8, and the students included in this study were first through eighth graders during the time of the study.
A longitudinal study is a type of study that follows the same subjects over time. Clarke County students who used the Fast ForWord products generally started with the Fast ForWord® Language or Fast ForWord® Literacy series, with students then progressing through the Fast ForWord® Reading series. Students started on the products during different years, with some starting as early as the 2006-2007 school year, and others starting aslate as the 2010-2011 school year.
The first wave of Fast ForWord participants at Clarke County started using the products in the fall of 2006 and made statistically significant improvements on the spring 2007 CRCT with continued improvements in 2008 and the following years. Students in the second wave started using the products in the fall of 2007 and made statistically significant improvements on the spring 2008 CRCT.
After a third group started in 2008 school year, the group’s CRCT scores significantly increased and then continued to go up. Similarly, students who began using the products in 2009 and 2010 also started to show increases in their reading scores after Fast ForWord participation.
Each cohort exhibits a similar pattern in that after Fast ForWord participation started, on average, the group showed a steady increase in their CRCT reading scores with each passing year.
Looking at the students who started using Fast ForWord products in 2010, there was an increase in the percentage of students reaching reading proficiency, with 55% of students who were not proficient in 2010 crossing the proficiency threshold in 2011.
In addition to longitudinal results, data were also analyzed for certain demographic groups, including students who were receiving Special Education services and students with Limited English Proficiency. Both groups achieved statistically significant improvements on the CRCT Reading Test after Fast ForWord participation.
If you have questions on this study or any other Fast ForWord study, please feel free to contact our Customer Service Team.
Related Reading:
Fast ForWord® Language Series Has Greatest Impact of Any Intervention Listed by NCRTI
My Nephew Was a Struggling Learner (Not Anymore!): Carrie’s Story
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Categories: English Language Learners, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Scientific Learning Research, Special Education
Language Skills Increase 1.8 Years After 30 Days Using Fast ForWord
- August 25, 2011 by Andrew Ostarello
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This study is a randomized controlled trial that investigated the impact of Fast ForWord Language software in 9 elementary schools. The analyses that follow include data from 452 students in grades K through 5.
Students were randomly assigned to be in either the Fast ForWord group or the control group. The randomization was stratified within age and gender.
Students using Fast ForWord trained for 100 minutes per day for an average of 30 school days. Both groups were evaluated using three assessments:
- Test of Auditory Comprehension of Language
- Phonological Awareness Test
- Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Education Battery
The average gains from pre-test to post-test were larger for Fast ForWord participants than for the control group for both Language Comprehension and Phonological Isolation. Both of these results were statistically significant.
In addition, a large subset of students in this study were English Language Learners. A total of 85 students did not speak English as their primary language – 53 of whom used Fast ForWord, while 32 served as controls. The results for English Language Learners were consistent with those for native English speakers. Both of these results were statistically significant.
In conclusion, Fast ForWord participation led to significantly larger improvements than the control group in a variety of early language skills.
The vast majority of students made learning gains; these students averaged 1.8 years of language improvement in only 30 school days.
These results are consistent for both ELL students and for native English speakers.
Finally, note that this study was conducted on the original version of Fast ForWord Language. Since publication of this study in 2004, a new and enhanced version of Fast ForWord Language has been released (Fast ForWord Language version 2).
Related Reading:
Forecasting ROI from Fast ForWord® and Reading Assistant™ Products
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Categories: English Language Learners, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Scientific Learning Research
Forecasting ROI from Fast ForWord® and Reading Assistant™ Products
- June 21, 2011 by Andrew Ostarello
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Return on Investment, or “ROI” is a straightforward concept. With educational interventions, we invest something (typically time, money, or energy) and receive some benefit.
The primary benefit of investing time, money, and energy in Fast ForWord® and Reading Assistant™ products is increased student achievement. This benefit has always been a focus for Scientific Learning. However, in our discussions with customers, we realized that many district stakeholders had a parallel benefit that they are concerned with: the financial impact on their district as a whole. We decided to see if we could address and quantify this parallel (and perhaps complementary) view of ROI.
We identified four areas where data suggest that implementation of Scientific Learning products can impact a district’s financial costs:
- Reduction of the high school dropout rate
- Reduction of referrals to special education
- Reduction of the number of students who require ELL services
- Reduction of the number of students classified as “struggling readers”
Here’s an example of how we tried to quantify one of these benefits. A district in Swartz Creek, Michigan observed a 30% drop year-over-year in special education referrals after implementing Fast ForWord products with their students. To be safe, we chose a very statistically conservative estimate for the reduction a new customer might expect to see in their special education referral rates: 21.2%. Technically, we got this by looking at the lower bound of a 95% confidence interval for the effect based on the Swartz Creek data.
These estimates led to the creation of Scientific Learning’s Return on Investment Tool. The tool estimates the ROI—that is, the true financial cost—of using Scientific Learning products over a three year horizon. This includes the initial software purchase and three years of product support. Note that we often see ROIs greater than 100% (i.e. a net financial benefit) for medium to large implementations with lots of students.
If we take a look at a three-year ROI for a large implementation, in year one the costs exceed the financial benefits, but in subsequent years the products more than pay for themselves. Actual estimates will depend greatly on the individual district and the scope of the implementation.
To get an ROI estimate for your school or district, contact us.
Related Reading:
Over 45% Relative Improvement in Students Reaching Proficiency
79% of ELL Students Increase Proficiency by One or More Levels
Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!
Categories: Education Trends, English Language Learners, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant, Scientific Learning Research, Special Education
68% of Students Improve MEPA Proficiency Significantly after Fast ForWord®
- May 12, 2011 by Andrew Ostarello
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This study looked at 118 English Language Learner students who used Fast ForWord® products in the 2009-2010 school year from Everett Public Schools in Everett, MA. A small minority of the students also used the Fast ForWord products in the previous 2008-2009 school year.
These students were tested in both 2009 and 2010 with the Massachusetts English Proficiency Assessment, or the “MEPA” for short. The impact of Fast ForWord products was dramatic and positive. Following Fast ForWord participation, students averaged about 15 and a half scaled score points of improvement between 2009 and 2010.
In addition, no student scored at proficiency level 1 (the lowest proficiency level) after using Fast ForWord products. On the other end of the spectrum, the number of students in the top two proficiency levels (levels 4 and 5) more than doubled, from 33 to 74 students.
Finally, 68% of participants improved one or more proficiency levels; 26% maintained the same proficiency level they had in 2009; while only 6% dropped a level. This shift is statistically significant.
Related Reading:
Unlocking the Potential of English Language Learners
Scientific Learning Around the World
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Categories: English Language Learners, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Scientific Learning Research
Let's Get Engaged!
- April 21, 2011 by Terri Zezula
The pressure on educators in today’s environment is nothing short of brutal. Achieving a balance between individualizing instruction and ensuring that all students are performing against standards requires comprehensive expertise, the ability to adapt to immediate needs of students and classrooms, and saintly patience.
This balancing act is especially challenging for educators in ESL classrooms. They not only have to deal with the same variations in skills, knowledge and experience that every classroom teacher must face; they must also engage students of varying cultural and linguistic backgrounds, making for an especially challenging mix of communications and social skills.
So, what kinds of reading activities can we use to teach all of these different students and engage them for maximum effectiveness? There is certainly no shortage of great techniques and ideas out there that we can mine. We need only to look to resources like The Internet TESL Journal, Dave’s ESL Café, ManyThings.org, and the US State Department’s English Teaching Forum for great techniques as well as background research.
Here are just a few seed questions to help you think about designing engaging ESL reading activities:
What’s your sign? The world we live in is awash with language in the form of signs and advertisements. Looking at signage out in the world around us not only offers wonderful, relevant reading material, it gives students short, quick messages to read and interpret. ManyThings.org offers an archive of over 700 photographs of signs to pull from at http://www.manythings.org/signs/.
What’s your story? Reading stories along with audio recordings is an excellent way to solidify reading and comprehension skills. We can maximize student engagement by choosing stories that are directly relevant to the cultural backgrounds of our students. Not only will this engage individual students, but it will provide fodder for cross-cultural conversation and understanding. Further, in highlighting individual students’ cultures, it allows each to shine and find pride in their background. For stories, check out Folk Tales from Around the World and the World of Tales.
What’s cool? Maybe the most effective way to engage students in reading is to select activities that are of genuine interest to them as individuals. What are the things that they think are, well, cool? Where are their passions? Designing activities that plug into those interests has incredible potential for maximum effectiveness. Websites like How Stuff Works offer endless resources for allowing students to read and learn about the topics that they find most interesting. And when they’re genuinely interested, they are most likely to want to read more, discuss more and write more.
Finding the “sweet spot” for designing ESL reading activities requires a great arsenal of tactics, tools and techniques. But if we can create and execute activities that teach the essential skills through harnessing each student’s passions and interests, we are that much more likely to help them learn successfully.
Related Reading:
Indispensible Automaticity: How Reading Frees the Mind to Learn
How Learning to Read Improves Brain Function
Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!
Categories: English Language Learners, Reading & Learning
48% More Students Newly Proficient on GA CRCT After Fast ForWord Use
- April 7, 2011 by Melissa Agocs
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Every spring, the Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests, abbreviated CRCT, are administered to students in Georgia. The CRCT is designed to measure how well students acquire the skills and knowledge described in the Georgia Performance Standards. Students are tested in Reading, English Language Arts and Mathematics. It is given every spring to all students in grades 1-8 and the students included in this study were first through eighth graders.
Students who used the Fast ForWord products generally started with the Fast ForWord Language or Fast ForWord Literacy products. During the 2007 – 2008 school year, some students started on the Fast ForWord Reading products, progressing as far as the Fast ForWord Reading Level 3 product. On average, students used the products for 60 – 70 days during a 6 month period.
The first wave of Fast ForWord participants at Clarke County started using the products between the 2006 and 2007 tests and made statistically significant improvements on the spring 2007 CRCT with continued improvements in 2008. Students in the second wave started using the products between the 2007 and 2008 tests and made statistically significant improvements on the spring 2008 CRCT. The third group served as the comparison group and did not use the products until after the 2008 test. The students who used the Fast ForWord products made more improvements in their reading achievement, crossing the proficiency threshold, compared to the students who did not use the products. In fact, 40% of the participants who were not proficient in 2006 reached proficiency in 2007 compared to 27% of the non-proficient students who did not use products.
In addition to longitudinal results, data were also analyzed for certain demographic groups, including students who were receiving Special Education services and students with Limited English Proficiency. Both groups achieved statistically significant improvements on the CRCT Reading Test after Fast ForWord participation. Students who were receiving Special Education services and who used Fast ForWord products made significant gains in their reading scores, but more importantly, these gains were significantly greater than the gains made by the comparison group. Similarly, students with limited English proficiency who used Fast ForWord products also made significant gains in their reading scores that were significantly greater than the gains made by the comparison group.
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Categories: Brain Fitness, English Language Learners, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Scientific Learning Research
Unlocking the Potential of English Language Learners
- January 18, 2011 by Peter Carabi
A few weeks back, I contributed a blog entry that provided some information on how Scientific Learning programs are implemented around the world via our Value Added Representative (VAR) partners.
Today, I want to discuss one such VAR in particular, our friends from BrainMaps, based in Shanghai, run by the husband and wife team of Tiffany and Rick Lee. BrainMaps currently has a total of seven owned or affiliated centers, and it focuses on helping children generally between the ages of 6 and 12 more rapidly acquire English reading and oral fluency skills. Over the next three to four years, BrainMaps plans to have over 50 centers throughout the People’s Republic of China. Perhaps more so than in any other non-English speaking country, the benefits of English proficiency for the Chinese are very concrete in economic terms. English proficient professionals will on average earn over 50% more for the same job than their less proficient colleagues.
The Lee’s bring years of experience to the practice of English learning, having been heavily involved in the Wall Street Institute (a global network of English learning centers) prior to their association with Scientific Learning. What drew them to our programs was the strong research base, the proven results, and the sharp contrast between our methodology versus the typical “content” approach of the competition. Amongst a large collection of international, regional and local competitors in the after-school ESL market in China, BrainMaps is unique in providing a brain-fitness/cognitive skills approach to English learning.
Children at a BrainMaps center begin with three to four months of intensive Fast ForWord use, usually beginning with the Fast ForWord Language program. This is followed by 26 weeks of use of the Reading Assistant product, which includes an innovative 45 minute direct group instruction session each week with a teacher using an interactive whiteboard to provide guided reading activities around a Reading Assistant story. This session is followed by a student “recital” period, where, gathered in front of the parents who have arrived to fetch their child from the learning center, the child reads a selected Reading Assistant story. Parents can see and hear the difference from week to week. This kind or vivid progress, augmented by the Progress Tracker reports showing gains on Words Correct Per Minute (WCPM) as well as improved comprehension scores, is what gives parents and the children themselves confidence in the BrainMaps method. After the 26 week period, the child reverts to another Fast ForWord program for two to three months, followed by another 26 week cycle of Reading Assistant, and so forth.
There is a rich vein of Chinese culture at play in the development of the BrainMaps instructional model. According to the Lee’s, their learning model is similar to the steps required to become a Kung-fu master. For Kung-fu mastery, there are three “must have” criteria, activating Ren-du acupuncture nodes, strengthening the inner chi-gong (internal energy), and intensively practicing the kung-fu formations. For the non-native speaker to learn English effectively, the analogous steps are to first unlock the learning potential, and then, in a sense, construct the English brain. Proper use of Fast ForWord products helps to address these two criteria. Finally, enriching the English knowledge comes about through use of Reading Assistant software, as well as via the Fast ForWord Reading programs.
BrainMaps branding includes the phrase, Powered By Scientific Learning, and we are proud of our association with this innovative use of our programs to help Chinese learners master English, putting them on a path for future success. The Lee’s welcome visitors who may be passing through Shanghai, and they can also be reached at rick.lee@brainmaps.com.cn. Or, feel free to contact me at pcarabi@scilearn.com.
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Categories: Brain Fitness, English Language Learners, Family Focus, Fast ForWord, Progress Tracker, Reading Assistant
HABLA Program Helps Disadvantaged Early Learners Lay Foundations for Success
- January 4, 2011 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D.
One of the key members of the Scientific Learning community is Dr. Virginia Mann. A consultant for Scientific Learning, Dr. Mann is also Professor of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine and Director of a program called HABLA that serves disadvantaged 2- to 4-year old children and their parents.
HABLA, which stands for "Home-based Activities Building Language Acquisition," and is the Spanish imperative for "speak", is "a broad-spectrum Latino-focused educational outreach program" whose goal is to go into homes and help parents learn to better speak and interact with their children to build their language and school readiness skills.
Dr. Mann’s research is discovering that the key precursor skills for reading are those that we tend to take for granted, such as understanding and articulating language, naming things and letters, and having a sense of rhyme. All of these skills grow and work together as children develop the foundations that will allow them to succeed in kindergarten. The HABLA program leverages this understanding and, through regular home visits (42 each year for two years), helps parents introduce these skills—in their native language—through reading, speaking and music activities as they talk and play with their children.
The results thus far are promising:
- Children in the program perform significantly better than their counterparts in the community in terms of these key communications skills. They are above normal where their untreated peers lag behind.
- As participants learn these core literacy skills, they also learn counting, colors, shapes and more, building the basic concepts and organizational and sequencing skills they will need to succeed in other areas, such as math, science and more.
- The gains that HABLA establishes in Spanish form a scaffold for learning English in school. Not only do HABLA participants excel in Spanish, they also excel in learning English and continue to surpass untreated children in preschool and kindergarten classes.
To learn more about Dr. Mann and the HABLA program, visit www.socsci.uci.edu/habla/.
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Categories: Brain Fitness, English Language Learners, Family Focus, Reading & Learning
Scientific Learning Around the World
- November 9, 2010 by Peter Carabi
Most readers of this blog are familiar with some of the “life-changing” stories associated with the use of Scientific Learning (SLC) programs (Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant) in schools and clinics in North America. But did you know that these same remarkable results are being achieved with students all over the world? While the use of our programs continues to expand in North America via sales to school districts and in conjunction with private providers, the company also has a growing international presence. Currently, SLC has a network of 25 Value Added Representatives (VARs) who provide our programs in over 45 countries (for a list of VARs and their countries. To obtain a list of our VARs, please visit http://www.scilearn.com/company/international/list-of-intl-vars/. The growth of the international market for SLC is considered a high priority, and is fueled by increasing awareness of brain fitness and the role of cognitive neuroscience in the learning process, as well as a keen emphasis (especially in Asian countries) on English language learning as a prerequisite for career success.
Our VAR network is composed of expert implementers of our programs, with backgrounds in such areas as speech pathology, English language learning, audiology, physical therapy, and reading theory. In most cases, VARs deliver Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant in combination with other interventions, therapies, and curricula, to address the particular needs various sub-groups of users. Most VARs have developed strategies to address the needs of different segments of their local users. For instance, most VARs have one or more of their own after school-day learning centers. In addition, they usually develop a network of “sub providers” (who can be composed of therapists, tutoring or language learning center operators, or other specialists). Finally, many VARs also conduct direct sales efforts to public and private schools. In each case, the kinds of “value added” services they provide will vary according to the needs of the partner or end user.
In addition to the many instances amongst our VARs of life-changing stories of success with individual students, several international research studies have been conducted which have added to the mounting library of evidence of the efficacy of our programs. These studies (visit http://www.scilearn.com/scientifically-based-research/international/10/) include research from Singapore, Germany, Bermuda, India, Australia, the UK, Ireland, Philippines, and Thailand.
It has taken time for the concept of brain fitness to gain widespread acceptance in North America. The same is true internationally. But recent events have dramatically demonstrated that educators and parents around the world are beginning to understand the power of our programs to build brain fitness, increase academic performance, address specific learning disorders, and enhance English language proficiency. For instance, in the area of special needs, in 2009 the Australian Government’s Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs named Fast ForWord as an approved intervention for children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). In South Korea, our local VAR partner (which has over 120 sub partners and school clients) has an official relationship with the Korea Association of Primary English Education (KAPEE) as a result of KAPEE’s observation of the success of Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant to help students quickly increase their English reading and speaking proficiency. And, in China, preliminary results of research conducted in conjunction with two prestigious universities (Peking University and Beijing Normal University) has shown impressive results for Chinese students using Fast ForWord.
More information about our VAR program can be found at www.scilearn.com/international. Our VARs are a committed, caring group of professionals who are happy to share what they have learned about our programs, and they always extend warm invitations to visitors who may be traveling in their countries on vacation and/or business, to visit their centers and learn more about how they incorporate our programs into their businesses. For more information, you can contact me at pcarabi@scilearn.com.
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Categories: Brain Fitness, English Language Learners, Fast ForWord, Reading Assistant
