In Independent Study of Fast ForWord, Sixth-Grade Students Exceed Expected Gains

• February 2, 2012 by Melissa Agocs

Hello. This presentation will review achievement gains made at the Bulloch County Schools in Georgia after students used the Fast ForWord^® products. This was an independent study conducted by Dr. Jody Woodrum, an Assistant Superintendent at the district.

The Bulloch County Schools started using the Fast ForWord products at selected schools during the 2007-2008 school year.  The district’s focus was on students close to proficiency in reading or language arts. In the fall of 2009, the Langston Chapel Middle School expanded its implementation to all sixth graders, regardless of ability level. This summary is about these sixth graders.

The students in this study used various Fast ForWord products, including the Fast ForWord Literacy, Fast ForWord Literacy Advanced, Fast ForWord Reading Prep, and Fast ForWord Reading Level 1 – 5 products. The participating school’s Fast ForWord Participation and Attendance were routinely considered “Gold Cap,” which is a high standard to strive for and shows that the school was adhering to the protocol.

Study participants were evaluated using the Measures of Academic Progress, abbreviated as MAP.  Developed by the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA), the MAP are state-aligned, computerized adaptive tests that accurately reflect the instructional level of each student and measure growth over time.  The MAP are appropriate for students in grades 2 through 10 and are available to evaluate student achievement in a variety of subject areas including reading, language arts, math, and science.

The MAP uses a measure of improvement called the Growth National Percentile Rank, which is a percentile rank of growth relative to “academic peers” – students in similar grades and at similar achievement levels.  On average, Fast ForWord participants made gains on the MAP, and for students who made gains, the gains were very large, corresponding to high Growth National Percentile Ranks. The next two graphs look at the Reading and English Language Arts results more closely.

Overall, 64% of participants from both groups of students – on and above grade level, and below grade level – increased their percentile rank on the Reading portion of the MAP. For the students who made gains, the gains corresponded to the 98^th percentile, which is considered very large and exceeded the expected improvement on the Reading component.

On the English Language Arts component of the MAP, 77% of participants made gains.  Once again, the improvement of both groups of Fast ForWord participants exceeded the expected improvement and the gains that were achieved were substantial – at the 99^th percentile.

Analyses by the staff at Bulloch County indicated that high gains were seen regardless of the students’ prior achievement levels, and regardless of the highest Fast ForWord product completed.

Thank you for your time. This video was a brief summary of the rigorous study from Bulloch County. For further detail, please reference Dr. Woodrum’s full report on the Scientific Learning website at www.scientificlearning.com/woodrum.

Related Reading:

60% of Middle and High School Learners Exceed FCAT Annual Learning Gain Expectations

Fifth Graders Make Significantly Greater Gains than a Comparison Group Across Multiple Subjects After Fast ForWord

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Categories: Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning

Tags: academic success, improving reading skills, increased test scores, language learning, literacy, MAP, middle school learning, student growth, technology in education, video

The Results of Fast ForWord Use at the Westfield Washington Schools in Indiana

• July 13, 2010 by Melissa Agocs

The Westfield Washington Schools are located just north of Indianapolis, in Indiana. During the 2007 - 2008 school year, the Westfield Intermediate School implemented Fast ForWord products.

For this study, the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) were used as a pre- and post-test. The MAP assesses language arts, math, and reading skills. Ninety-eight students used the Fast ForWord products and had MAP scores that could serve as pre- and post-tests.

School personnel administered the assessment and then reported scores to Scientific Learning for analysis. On average, students used the products over a period of six months. The majority of students used three or more Fast ForWord products, starting on the Fast ForWord Literacy product, then advancing to the Literacy Advanced product, and then on to one or more Fast ForWord Reading products.

MAP scores are reported in terms of RIT scores, which indicate a student’s achievement level within a specific subject. To provide a performance comparison, participants’ gains were compared to the student’s expected gains, which were based upon RIT growth norms in the three subject areas of language arts, math, and reading.

Students showed exciting results and exceeded the expected RIT growth norms. Students who used Fast ForWord products made 7 points of RIT growth in language arts, which is 67% greater than the expected growth of 4.2 points. Gains of 10.1 points were seen in math for the Fast ForWord participants, which is 35% greater than the expected growth. Students gained 8.8 points in reading, which is nearly double the expected 4.5 points growth.

The differences between the gain scores and the expected gain scores were statistically significant in all three subject areas. These results suggest that using the Fast ForWord products strengthened the students’ foundational skills and better positioned them to benefit from the classroom curriculum.

For more information, please see the Educator Briefing and Full Report on this study as well as any of our 200+ additional reports on Fast ForWord results. If you have questions about any of our research studies, please contact us.

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Categories: Fast ForWord, Progress Tracker, Reading & Learning, Scientific Learning Research

Tags: academic success, accelerate learning, assessments, brain training, child reading development, curriculum, improving reading skills, increased test scores, Indiana, investing in innovation, language learning, learning to read, literacy, MAP, math, phonemic awareness, school leader effectiveness, teacher effectiveness, technology in education

Liberty Public Schools Improves Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) Scores

• January 12, 2010 by Denise Ruvalcaba

Over the last three years, Liberty Public Schools has steadily improved MAP scores and Franklin Elementary has achieved even greater gains. From 2008 to 2009, the percentage of Franklin Elementary students scoring at the proficient level or above on the MAP jumped from 65 percent to 82 percent in communication arts, and from 69 percent to 80 percent in mathematics. According to Dr. Barbara Wippich, curriculum and instruction intervention coordinator for the LPS, Fast ForWord® and Reading Assistant™ software have played a big role in the district's success.  Click here to view case study

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Categories: Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant

Tags: assessments, elementary learning, MAP, Missouri, increased test scores