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This year’s annual customer conference, Virtual Circle of Learning 2011, took place online last Friday with over 800 registrants. The keynote speakers—Eric Jensen, Dr. Martha Burns, and Andrew Ostarello—addressed opportunities for customers to maximize the impact of their implementations of Scientific Learning products.
Much of the content from these keynotes can be seen in our Twitter stream with the hashtag #VCOL11, as we live-tweeted the keynote sessions and linked to articles relevant to each speaker’s presentation.

The articles provide further reading on increasing student motivation and engagement, maximizing the results of using Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant products, and more:
Customers who missed a keynote or breakout session can watch it on Customer Connect (customer login required). Feel free to share the link with others at your school who were not able to attend.
Also, be sure to complete your survey to let us know what you enjoyed and what we can improve for next year. And, if you have an iPad, be sure to include your iTunes email address so we can give you our new iPad app, Eddy’s Number Party!
And now, off to start planning for Virtual Circle of Learning 2012!
Related Reading:
Building Fluent Readers: How Oral Reading Practice Helps Reading Comprehension
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: Education Trends, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant

In my former work as a teacher, one of the best moments of the day in my classroom took place when I read aloud to my students. It was a magical time for all of us as the words on the page and the characters in the story seemed to come alive right before us as I used different voices and accents. Sometimes I read very fast and other times I created long pauses that kept my students hanging, wondering what would happen next. I wanted them to love reading as much as I did – to enjoy that excitement you feel when you solve a mystery, are saved from catastrophe, or discover a wild and wonderful new world. Sharing this gift with my students was possible only because I am a fluent reader.
In his book The Fluent Reader, Dr. Timothy Rasinski says that fluency is a critical but sometimes ignored link between the basic reading of words and achieving comprehension. With fluency, the foundational skills of phonics and word recognition have progressed to the point that only a minimal amount of cognitive energy is needed for decoding so that the reader can focus on understanding what is being read. When you are a fluent reader, you are able to read easily and efficiently with prosody, or meaningful expression, and that enhances your comprehension.
Students must have some degree of fluency in order to comprehend text, so if you have students who easily understand what is read to them but have difficulty when reading independently, fluency may be the source of that problem. A study of fourth graders sponsored by the US Department of Education demonstrated that the most fluent readers had the strongest comprehension scores. In addition, every decline in oral reading fluency in the study had a corresponding decline in reading comprehension.[i] The study was replicated ten years later with about 1,500 students and had similar results.[ii] In both studies, close to half of the students who were not adequately fluent in reading also demonstrated significant problems with comprehension.
Practice is essential to learning and mastering any skill – sports, music, cooking, etc. - so it makes sense that this also would apply to the skill of reading. By including consistent oral reading practice during the school day, the reading process becomes transparent so it can be observed, examined and supported until students become independent readers. Readers must transition from being tied to the individual words so they can achieve higher levels of comprehension as they read. A great way to encourage this is through repeated oral practice of the same reading selection, which helps students with word recognition, fluency and prosody as well as general reading and comprehension.
There is something special about reading aloud regardless of who does the reading. Oral reading is a powerful tool that can help students not only learn to read fluently but also to experience the joy of reading.
The transition from rote to rapture - that’s what fluency can do for you.
Want to learn more? Check out Dr. Rasinski’s free on-demand webinar on scilearn.com, Teaching Fluency: The Neglected Goal of the Reading Program.
[i] Gay S. Pinnell et al. Listening to Children Read Aloud: Data From NAEP’s Integrated Reading Performance Record (IRPR) at Grade 4, 1995. http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/permalinkPopup.jsp?accno=ED378550
[ii]Mary C. Daane, Jay R. Campbell, Wendy S. Grigg, Madeline J. Goodman, and Andreas Oranje. Fourth-Grade Students Reading Aloud: NAEP 2002 Special Study of Oral Reading, October 2005. http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/studies/2006469.asp
Related Reading:
The Essential Nature of Developing Oral Reading Fluency
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: Education Trends, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant
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Marion County Public Schools in Ocala, FL, wanted to evaluate the effects of the Fast ForWord® and Reading Assistant™ products on the academic achievement of their students. Students in Florida are assessed with the Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test, abbreviated as the FCAT. The students in this study were initially at FCAT Level 1 or 2, where Level 3 means performing on grade level and Level 5 means the student is successful with the most challenging grade-level content. These study participants attended middle and high schools in the Marion County Public Schools and most of them were eligible for Exceptional Student Education services.
Each spring, all Marion County students in Grades 3-10 take the FCAT. This is a criterion-referenced test. The Reading portion of the FCAT is designed to assess student achievement of the high-order cognitive skills represented in the Sunshine State Standards.
One way for students at FCAT Levels 1 and 2 to meet their Annual Learning Gains (ALG), a component in determining a school’s grade, is for them to improve their scores by more than a state-mandated level that varies depending on grade level. Across the students in this study, in order to meet Annual Learning Gains, the students had to improve at least 115 points.
After using Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant products, 60% of the participants made ALG with the actual improvement of 173 points, on average, exceeding the expected gain of 115 points by a statistically significant amount.
Related Reading:
Longitudinal Study Shows Significant Fast ForWord® Gains Endure Over Time
Fast ForWord® Language Series Has Greatest Impact of Any Intervention Listed by NCRTI
Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!
Categories: Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant, Scientific Learning Research

Customers, mark your calendars! This year’s annual Scientific Learning customer conference, the 2011 Virtual Circle of Learning, will take place on November 4, bringing together Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant product users from across North America. Circle of Learning participants will get to hear the latest in brain research and learn practical applications that will benefit students immediately.
This year’s Circle of Learning will be a 100% virtual event. It will include the same caliber of comprehensive content and keynote speakers as in our past on-site conferences, and we’ll be actively using social media to connect participants before, during, and after the event.
The Circle of Learning agenda features three engaging keynotes—including the ever-popular Eric Jensen (Teaching with Poverty in Mind) and Scientific Learning’s own Dr. Marty Burns (Motivating our Coaches and Teachers) and Andrew Ostarello (The Story of Data). Breakout sessions follow, addressing the importance of attention skills, memory, processing skills, and sequencing skills, as well as a special breakout session especially for tech team members.
Please plan to join us for this once-a-year, not-to-be-missed customer event!
Oh, and did I mention that it is FREE?!
Related Reading:
Students who Struggle in the Mainstream: What their Homework Patterns May Tell You
Implementation Fidelity: Maximizing Your Fast ForWord or Reading Assistant Investment
Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!
Categories: Brain Research, Education Trends, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant, Scientific Learning Research
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What is Implementation Fidelity? It is Scientific Learning’s measure of how well Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant users are following product usage protocols.
In order to maximize a student’s benefit from Fast ForWord or Reading Assistant, users need to have an intensive and persistent experience. This means using the products regularly and according to protocol. The available Fast ForWord protocols are five days a week for 30, 40, 50, or 90 minutes per day. For Reading Assistant, the protocols are 20, 30, or 40 minutes per day (depending on the grade band) for three days per week. Adherence to these protocols helps students build on their daily successes.
This leads naturally to the following question: How do you know if a student is having an intensive and persistent Fast ForWord or Reading Assistant experience?
Our answer is a concept called Implementation Fidelity. Implementation Fidelity measures how closely users of Scientific Learning products are adhering to the recommended usage protocols.
There are three components to Implementation Fidelity:
Each of these components can be measured at the individual student, classroom, or district level.
Implementation Fidelity components are measured on a scale from 0 to 100%. Scores in the top 20% are considered “Good,” scores in the middle 60% are considered “Fair,” and the remaining scores in the bottom 20% are considered “Poor.”
Scientific Learning Progress Tracker is an online tool to monitor and manage Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant success.
Progress Tracker has reports to help customers track the Implementation Fidelity of their students. For example, one Implementation Fidelity report shows the overall Completion Rate, Attendance, and Participation categories for a district as a whole and for each school in that district.
We have found that a good implementation, on average, leads to 50% more reading gain per year.
Related Reading:
Forecasting ROI from Fast ForWord® and Reading Assistant™ Products
Making Computerized Learning Work Takes WORK
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Categories: Fast ForWord, Progress Tracker, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant, Scientific Learning Research

Ms. Egli is Executive Director at Bridges Academy in Winter Spring, FL.
Students who maintain average grades, but appear to be expending an excessive amount of time and effort to maintain those grades may have underlying learning deficits. As educators, we shouldn’t overlook the fact that students who require more time for completing assignments seem to show a disparity between what they have learned in class and how they perform on high stakes assessments. They may in fact be struggling with various learning challenges such as weakness in memory function, inability to process large volumes of information, vocabulary deficits and poor abilities in written expression.
Working with University of Central Florida Communications Disorders doctoral candidate Janet Proly, I had the opportunity to collaborate on a single-subject designed study of three promising high school students who appeared to be successful in their classes but also had significant hidden learning deficits.
The three students, twin 10th-grade boys in a general education program and a 12th-grade student who attended a magnet health and science academy, expressed concern over their struggle to keep up with their respective workloads of studying, reading and comprehending assignments, and their performance on tests like the FCAT. All reported that it took them three times the amount of actual time to complete their homework, citing that they had to re-read assignments multiple times in order to master the information. This inefficient learning caused all three boys to receive lower than expected scores on the state assessment, possibly compromising their ability to obtain a standard high school diploma. All three students approached me to inquire about participating in a summer reading program hosted by Bridges Academy, and thus became candidates for our collaborative study on the impact of improving reading fluency using computer technology for intervention.
Proly and I structured a single subject design study to determine the impact of using computer technology formulated to improve processing and working memory, as well as oral reading fluency. We modeled our study after the 2010 study published by Wexler, Vaughn, Roberts, and Denton.[i] The school offered a summer program to the three students. Using the Fast ForWord Literacy and Reading Assistant products for the six-week planned intervention would address recommendations for an alternative fluency intervention with a higher degree of intensity, and the inclusion of interventions that focus on processing.
After an initial assessment, the students participated in the intervention. We conducted a post-intervention assessment, and then assessed the students once again six months after the intervention. All three students demonstrated significant improvement in their reading fluency, and gains of more than two years on average in word attack and comprehension skills. The three students sustained these gains even though all three were no longer receiving any support or intervention.
This study, along with the focus on adolescent literacy, has increased interest in addressing the needs of middle and high school students who report these kinds of challenges in three specific programs: the UCF Communications Disorders Clinic; the UCF Communications Disorders Doctoral Program; and the Bridges Academy private school. As our results indicate, these short term computer interventions, through focusing on working memory, reading fluency and processing speed, have significant potential to help capable students succeed both in classes and on annual assessments.
In 2008 alone, over 20,000 high school students in the state of Florida dropped out of the public high school program. Did they leave because it was simply too hard to keep up? Could we have kept them in school if we had been able to provide a short term intervention that could not only have engaged them, but improved their learning and achievement? My collaborators and I all believe the answer to both of these questions is, absolutely, yes.
So what comes next? Our plan is to work together on an expanded study for the 2011-12 academic year that will take place at the private school and the UCF Communications Disorders Clinic. In reaching more participants, our plan – and our hope – is to continue to demonstrate program effectiveness and change the lives of more students for the better.
[i] Wexler, J., Vaughn, S., Roberts, G. & Denton, C.A. (2010), The efficacy of repeated reading and wide reading practice for high school students with severe reading disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 25(1), 2-10.
Related Reading:
Inspiring Fluency: One School’s Journey to Improve Reading Skills
One Half Year Increase in One Month with Reading Assistant
Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!
Categories: Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant, Special Education

A focus on core reading skills has recently been promoted in college coursework for beginning teachers, statewide initiatives for student achievement, and professional development for teachers across the curriculum in all levels of education. One of the five core skills, fluency, is still being heavily debated among the researchers, but is gaining traction as an instructional skill that is necessary to the efficiency of reading. Differences in word reading or naming speed, two aspects of fluency, have been identified as early as kindergarten levels in struggling readers (Wolf, Bally, & Morris, 1986), and can continue to be tracked into middle and high school (Meyer, Wood, Hart, and Felton, 1999). Many students who struggle and are identified as having reading deficits have difficulty with reading speed and accuracy.
Although there seems to be a significant and growing body of research on reading skills, including fluency, there is still much to be learned about the impact of fluency on overall learning. The typical definition of fluency is “the ability to read connected text rapidly, smoothly, effortlessly and automatically with little conscious attention to the mechanics of reading, such as decoding” (Meyers and Felton, 1999). Reading fluency problems of children with reading difficulties, according to Torgeson (2006), are a result of students’ difficulties forming large vocabularies of words that they can recognize “by sight” or at a single glance. If students receive “powerful and appropriately focused interventions many of them can become accurate readers and their reading comprehension improves as a result of being able to correctly identify more of the words in text” (Torgeson, 2006).
Bridges Academy, located in Winter Springs Florida, serves students with specific learning disabilities. The overall purpose of the program is to remediate the learning gaps for the students and to “bridge” them back into mainstream schools with mainstream curriculum. Ninety-nine percent of the students who attend the school have an identified deficit in reading and many are considered to be dysfluent readers. Several years ago, Bridges Academy incorporated a computer-based instructional tool, Reading Assistant software, that provided a highly focused intervention for fluency to address the skill development of reading fluency, as a trial implementation.
For the pilot program, 10 middle school aged students were selected to try the Reading Assistant program. Each middle school student was invited to participate, if they desired to do so, during their homeroom time at the end of the day. Homeroom time, of course, is a very social time and many of the middle school students looked forward to spending some time connecting with their peers before leaving campus for the day. Each of the students was asked to commit to no more than 10 days, so they did not feel that they were giving up their social time for the rest of the school year.
To get familiar with the program and the process, each student was assigned a level of the computer program that was instructionally suited to their present independent reading level. The requirements were straightforward. Students were to listen to a selected story read aloud on the computer a total of three times. Then each student was required to review any words that were unfamiliar to them by selecting the word and seeing or hearing an example of that word in a picture or sentence. After this initial step the students were required to orally read the story selection. Words Correct Per Minute (WCPM) was tracked by the software and students were directed to complete a series of comprehension questions when done. One key component unique to this product was the requirement that the student listen to their own voice recording of the selection after each of the three required oral reading samples.
The interest and enthusiasm amongst these 10 middle school students as the project began was very exciting to the faculty and administration. All 10 students shared information with their parents and their classmates about the project and the way the program worked. During their lunch break, they discussed the various stories that they were reading amongst themselves and shared their present WCPM scores with their peers with tremendous pride! These students would celebrate their promotion to a new story with a “high five” and pored over their data reports at the end of the week to see what types of gains in fluency they were making. What was most encouraging? All 10 of the students chose to work on the program for the duration of the school year, a period of eight weeks. One student even elected to come back to the campus during summer vacation to complete the stories he was reading, so he could reach his own set goal of 200 WCPM!
The impact of this implementation of the Reading Assistant program is now being realized across the campus at Bridges Academy. All students who are reading above a second grade level are provided access to the Reading Assistant program two to three times a week, throughout the school year. Students who are preparing to “bridge” to a new school program are provided the opportunity to work four afternoons a week as an after school option, so that they may increase their proficiency rate with above grade level material in preparation for their move to the mainstream schools. Every January through April, 80% of the students eligible for bridging can be observed working in the afterschool program. What is most impressive is that these students have chosen to participate in this afterschool program!
The assessments, data analysis, and individual summary reports built into Reading Assistant track the overall impact of the program in improving reading skills for student participants. Bridges Academy staff and administration are pleased with the overall improvements in the students’ reading skills and confidence. The students perceive themselves as readers, and parents report that the students are now becoming more confident readers who enjoy reading--many for the first time!
References:
Meyer, M.A., & Felton, R.H. (1999). Repeated reading to enhance fluency: Old approaches and new directions. Annals of Dyslexia, 49, 283–306.
Meyer, M.S., Wood, F.B., Hart, L.A. & Fenton, R. H. (1999) Longitudinal course of rapid naming in disabled and non disabled readers. Annals of Dyslexia, 48, 89-114.
Torgeson, J.K. & Hudson, R. (2006) Reading fluency: critical issues for struggling readers. In S.J. Samuels and A. Farstrup (Eds.). Reading Fluency: The forgotten dimension of reading success. Newark, DE: International Reading Association
Wolf, M., Bally, H., & Morris, R. (1986) Automaticity, retrieval process and reading: A longitudinal study in average and impaired readers. Child Development, 57, 988-1000.
Related Reading:
Truth in Numbers: School Achieves Statistically Significant Improvements on TAKS
The Essential Nature of Developing Oral Reading Fluency
Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!
Categories: Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant, Special Education
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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:
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

Having built a career in the world of education and computerized learning, I have always tried to maintain a healthy, objective skepticism towards what I do. When it comes to professional integrity, my top priorities are ensuring that the solutions I work with are developed and vetted based on reliable research, and that these solutions are delivering real results for educators and students.
So, which computerized learning systems work and which ones don’t? Given how differently organizations formulate and interpret the numbers, it’s challenging to get at a singular accurate answer. I know for a fact that all too often schools and districts implement these computerized learning solutions—with the best of intentions—and find that they don’t work as promised. Why?
Quite simply, making these solutions work takes work. They are not “plug and play,” nor are they designed to be a one-size-fits-all magic bullet. Computerized solutions—Fast ForWord® and Reading Assistant™ among them—take careful planning, hours of professional development, and a deep staff and leadership commitment to following implementation protocols.
These systems do not do the work of teachers; they are tools to supplement teacher instruction and inform educators’ decisions. They are not, nor were they ever meant to be, a substitute for highly qualified educators. But when implemented and used correctly, computerized learning systems can and do help educators identify and address individual student needs and deliver results.
Scientific Learning offers an entire library of success stories and research, as well as independent reviews that demonstrate product effectiveness. But look at every single success and behind it you will not just find a product. You will find that the people using that product held a deep commitment to following the plan and making it work.
In conclusion, we must realize that none of these are new arguments. Even 10 years ago when computer-based learning was still very much in its infancy, researchers knew that these systems should not be expected to work on their own; they need to be embedded within great instructional practices. For a look back at key e-learning principles that still stand strong today, read the 2000 article, Changing How and What Children Learn in School with Computer-Based Technologies, by Roschelle, Pea, Hoadley, Gordin and Means.
Another Resource:
Technology and Education Achievement: http://abc-article.co.cc/technology/technology-and-academic-achievement/
Related Reading:
Video Games: A New Perspective on Learning Content and Skills
Can You Predict Student Reading Growth?
Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!
Categories: Education Trends, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant
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In a 5-week summer program, students at eleven schools from Wayne County Public Schools in North Carolina used the Reading Assistant software from Scientific Learning. To evaluate the impact of this program, the district conducted an observational study using reading scores, collected before and after the intervention, from 117 students.
The outcomes measure used for the study was Reading Progress Indicator - RPI for short. This computer-based assessment is standardized and nationally normed, and it is correlated with other widely used reading measures. RPI assesses student learning in four key skill areas: phonological awareness, decoding, vocabulary, and comprehension.
Study participants used Reading Assistant software, which combines advanced speech verification technology with research-based interventions to function as a personal tutor for guided oral reading practice. On average, the study participants worked with the software for a total of 6.3 hours over a 24 day period.
At the beginning of Wayne County’s summer program, the study participants scored at the 21st percentile in reading skills, on average. Five weeks later, after working with Reading Assistant, the study group moved to the 30th percentile in reading skills – a statistically significant improvement. They also improved their average reading level, moving from “struggling readers” to “emerging readers.”
Related Reading:
How Does Learning Coach Technology Work?
Can Scientific Learning Products Improve School Test Scores?
Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!
Categories: Education Trends, Reading Assistant, Scientific Learning Research