Seldon’s Story: Testing Out of Special Education

• January 19, 2012 by Norene Wiesen

This post is the eighth in a series aimed at sharing the success stories, both personal and professional, that Scientific Learning employees witness every day.

“I think one of the reasons that this job has been so different from my other jobs as a classroom teacher or working in print has been my journey as I have grown to understand the Scientific Learning programs and how effective they are.  

The one student that I can call to mind very vividly is Danielle.  She was a 3rd grader and she had just recently qualified for special services.   Her district was having her use the [Fast ForWord] program over the summer.  

I had the chance to visit her and her district representative as she was going through the programs. She was having some real attentional problems and was also having difficulties in reading. She was really excited about going through the program and by the end of the summer she had really grown so much that when she went back to school in the fall, she actually tested out of her special education label. 

I was invited to attend the [Admission, Review, and Dismissal] Meeting and it was amazing to see her teachers look at the data and say ‘Wow - this happened over the summer!’ They were really in awe and, at first, disbelief.  They then realized she was able to focus, pay attention and be successful at the tasks she had to do at school.  She was able to be much more independent and be successful on her own.”

Related Reading:

Corey’s Story: My Son No Longer Needs Intervention After Using Fast ForWord

Sara’s Story: From 6 Months Behind in Reading to the Accelerated Reading Class

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Categories: Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Special Education

Tags: academic success, attention, employee stories, improving reading skills, student growth, success stories, video

Longitudinal Study Shows Significant Fast ForWord^® Gains Endure Over Time

• October 6, 2011 by Melissa Agocs

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

Tags: academic success, accelerate learning, child reading development, elementary school learning, improving reading skills, increased test scores, literacy, middle school learning, reading comprehension, reading intervention, technology in education, video

Students who Struggle in the Mainstream: What their Homework Patterns May Tell You

• August 2, 2011 by Jacqueline Egli

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 10^th-grade boys in a general education program and a 12^th-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

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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

Tags: academic success, accelerate learning, at-risk, attention, brain training, cognitive skills, high school learning, improving reading skills, intervention, learning disabilities, processing, reading comprehension, reading intervention, struggling students, student growth, technology in education

Inspiring Fluency: One School’s Journey to Improve Reading Skills

• July 21, 2011 by Jacqueline Egli

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

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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

Tags: academic success, child reading development, fluency, improving reading skills, learning to read, literacy, motivating students, reading comprehension, reading intervention, self-esteem, struggling readers, student growth, success stories, technology in education

Forecasting ROI from Fast ForWord® and Reading Assistant™ Products

• June 21, 2011 by Andrew Ostarello

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

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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

Tags: high school learning, increased test scores, investing in innovation, school leader effectiveness, struggling readers, student growth, technology in education, video

Understanding Autism in Children

• April 14, 2011 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D.

Ever since we began to understand the autistic spectrum, researchers and laypeople alike have been fascinated by the mysteries of the disorder. The fact that high-functioning individuals with Asperger’s syndrome like Dr. Temple Grandin and Daniel Tammet have become public figures speaks to our fascination with what people on the autistic spectrum can achieve outwardly, as well as our desire to empathize with what they struggle with internally.

According to the CDC, approximately 9 in 1,000 children in the United States are diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum each year.[i] They are characterized as having “deficits in social reciprocity and communication, as well as by repetitive behaviors and restricted interests.”[ii] That said, how can we as educators better help them to not only become integrated into our classrooms, but more importantly, help them reap as much benefit as possible from the experiences we provide? What foundational information can we use to start constructing successful strategies for these children?

First, we can try to better understand the nature of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Recent studies have demonstrated linkages between ASD and auditory processing. Researchers at Vanderbilt University found that while typically developing (TD) children performed on par with ASD children on certain visually-oriented tasks, ASD children experienced greater challenges with auditory tasks.[iii] Likewise, researchers in Haifa, Israel showed that certain abnormal speech patterns directly correlated to ASD, further reinforcing the conclusion that auditory processes in the brain are implicated in those on the autism spectrum.[iv]

Understanding these linkages will not only help us better understand the ASD child’s experience, but it will help researchers and educators develop more effective learning strategies to help them achieve success.

At Scientific Learning, researchers performed a study in 2007 to evaluate how ASD children could benefit from Fast ForWord®, a program that engages and improves reading based on visual as well as auditory input.  We were happy to find that developmentally delayed children—specifically those with ASD—“made significant gains in their language ability.” The data suggest that Fast ForWord helped strengthen the foundational skills needed to help these students get more out of their classroom experiences, as well as function better in society.[v]

Nicole Russo led another study of ASD children related to auditory processing. In short she had two groups of ASD children, one who received Fast ForWord training, and a control who did not. Their data showed that the group who received Fast ForWord training showed changes in brainstem response timing, pitch-tracking, and cortical response timing, indicating that the technology may indeed prove to be a useful tool in the future for helping ASD children improve their processing capabilities.[vi]

Overall, our greatest hope for these students is to achieve a better understanding of two pieces of the autism puzzle: the neurology of the disorder, as well as the psychology and emotional struggles that these students deal with every day. I have found that along with reading the research cited above, I have also gained great insights by reading more personal accounts penned by those with ASD. It is in some of those personal writings that I find my greatest inspiration as these individuals work so hard—often with great success—to make themselves understood.

To increase your understanding of ASD, here are a couple of additional readings:

• A new documentary, “Wretches and Jabberers,” directed by Academy Award-winning director Gerardine Wurzburg, recounts the experience of two autistic men and opens our eyes to better understand their world. Here is a recent review.
• Raun K. Kaufman writes his own account of growing up with autism. While he was diagnosed at 18 months, his parents decided to break with traditional treatments and develop their own program for him. Kaufman describes himself as “fully recovered” from autism, and is today the Director of Global Outreach for the Autism Treatment Center of America. Read more about Kaufman and the child-centered Son-Rise Program.

Related Reading:

Improving Reading Comprehension in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Musical Training and Cognitive Abilities

[i] Newschaffer CJ, Croen LA, Daniels J et al. The epidemiology of autism spectrum disorders [PDF]. Annu Rev Public Health. 2007;28:235–58. doi:10.1146/annurev.publhealth.28.021406.144007. PMID 17367287.
[ii] Kwakye L, Foss-Feig J, Cascio C, Stone W, Wallace M. Altered auditory and multisensory temporal processing in autism spectrum disorders. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. Jan 5, 2011, 4:129. p 1.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Bonneh Y, Levanon  Y, Dean-Pardo  O, Lossos L, and Adini Y. Abnormal speech spectrum and increased pitch variability in young autistic children. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Jan 19, 2011, 4:237, p 1.
[v] Scientific Learning Corporation. (2007). Improved Language Skills by Students with Developmental Delays who used Fast ForWord® Products, MAPS for Learning: Educator Reports, 11(12): 1-5.
[vi] Russo, M. Hornickel, J. Nicol, T. Zecker, S. Kraus, N. Biological changes in auditory function following training in children with autism spectrum disorders. Behavioral and Brain Functions. 2010, 6:60.

 

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Categories: Family Focus, Fast ForWord, Special Education

Tags: auditory processing, autism, cognitive skills, learning disabilities, oral language skills, technology in education

Improving Reading Comprehension in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

• February 17, 2011 by Ann Osterling

Finally! I am pleased that Emily Iland, the author of the recently released book, Drawing a Blank: Improving Reading Comprehension for Readers on the Autism Spectrum, has addressed the issue of hidden reading comprehension problems in some children on the autism spectrum. For more than 30 years I have been working with children with a diagnosis of hyperlexia. Occasionally also diagnosed with High Functioning Autism or Asperger's Syndrome, these are children who can read words-with ease- often without any reading instruction,  and sometimes at a very early age. These children, who invariably show problems in socialization skills, also may exhibit significant impairments in language and auditory processing, yet they have been able to miraculously “break the code.”

These children may perform well on early tests of reading readiness and decoding. The term Hyperlexia is applied because they are often sounding out words (decoding) better than their peers who have no developmental issues. Because of their decoding skills, these children may not be identified as needing any special support in reading through the IEP process. In reality, they need help with comprehension and vocabulary of the sentences they can read aloud so easily.  Like Emily IIand, I have delighted in seeing this incredible ability to decode words develop and have recognized the issue of the comprehension problems that are often hidden in these children on the Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Iland writes from the perspective of a mother turned researcher and educational therapist. Her son’s spontaneous abilities to read and spell as a toddler were regarded as an exceptional talent (later diagnosed as hyperlexia). Although his ability to decode words continued, by fourth grade he began to struggle academically due to undetected comprehension problems. At age 13, he was tested and found to have a 12-year gap between his reading comprehension skills (4^th grade level) and mathematic skills (16^th grade level). Eventually he was diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum.  But after intensive intervention, he was able to earn his bachelor’s degree in accounting, pass the CPA exam, and obtain employment as an accountant. However, many students like her son do not have this happy outcome because reading comprehension issues are not identified or properly remediated.

In her review of typical reading skill development, Iland points out where the breakdowns in comprehension begin for children with autism. She discusses the impact of the social deficits associated with autism spectrum disorders on comprehension of language and reading. The child’s narrow range of interests can lead to limited exposure to the world and restricted vocabulary. Difficulties with interpersonal relationships can interfere with the ability to learn that other people may have different perspectives, motivations and beliefs. Rigid thinking can restrict the children from understanding that words can have multiple meanings and that different words can be used to mean the same thing.

The reading comprehension problems of individuals with autism are often “masked,” or hidden, by their strengths in decoding, fluency, rote memory, and understanding of concrete information. This is especially true during the early school years when there is a focus on teaching children HOW to read. There are specific difficulties in young children that correlate with later difficulties in reading comprehension that should be closely examined in children with autism. For example, a child who is reading fluently may not have good phonemic awareness abilities due to  the auditory processing problems, which are common in children with ASD.  Receptive language problems may also be present in these children. Iland discusses appropriate assessment tools for different ages, as well as the importance of identifying the underlying comprehension difficulties of these children.

A significant part of the book focuses on reading comprehension strategies to improve skills for these children. Iland shares the implications of the limited research on effective remediation of reading comprehension for learners with ASD. She addresses the recommendations of the National Reading Panel, pointing out the best strategies for students with ASD and helping the reader recognize strategies that would likely be a mismatch. While Iland selects strategies because of their value for children with ASD, many of them are useful for other children as well. Drawing a Blank: Improving Reading Comprehension for Readers on the Autism Spectrum is a welcome and needed resource. Emily Iland’s multiple perspectives and clear writing style make this book user-friendly for parents, educators, speech-language pathologists, students and others interested in helping individuals who are on the autism spectrum become more successful readers.

Related Reading:

Creating Reading Intention: Strategies to Improve Reading Comprehension Skills in Students

Teaching and Learning with Intent through Guided Reading Activities

Related Webinars:

Autism: What is the Latest Research?

Autism: Support and Interventions

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Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Brain Research, Family Focus, Special Education

Tags: auditory processing, autism, child reading development, improving reading skills, learning disabilities, literacy, phonemic awareness, phonics, reading comprehension

Intensive Intervention Tier 3: What leads to the need?

• January 20, 2011 by Terri Zezula

To start talking about intensive intervention tier 3 in the Response to Intervention Model, I want to start by asking you a simple question:

Are you having chicken for dinner tonight?

You probably can’t fathom how fast your brain arrived at the yes or no conclusion that popped into your head. And yet, to process that one sentence, your brain had to think through seven words, eleven syllables, 19 to 21 phonemes, 35 letters and three distinct “e” sounds. And your amazing brain did all that, sequencing the concepts, drawing on your memory and formulating an answer, in fractions of a second.

The reason your brain was able to perform such an incredible feat is because you have the foundational knowledge -- and the countless neurons in place and linked up in your brain -- to process that information. Those connections are the result of years of language acquisition and learning, the majority of which happened when you were less than four years old.

We are born with the natural ability to acquire language and speech; it is the first test of our brain’s capacity to learn. When we speak and read to infants and young children, we are helping to establish that linguistic foundation, teach speech, develop vocabulary and impart those essential skills. Reading is a different story. Written language must be taught and learned; that’s why we focus on reading skills so heavily in preschool and kindergarten.

But what happens when children don’t get that essential exposure to language early on? What if a child experiences chronic ear infections in his first four years? What if her parents work long hours and don’t read to her often? What if a child does not receive that essential early language stimulation?

Early language development is the precursor for reading; without that indispensable input, a child’s brain literally does not learn how to process input correctly. Consider that by the time she is four years old, on average, the child of a professional family has absorbed over three times the number of words as a child of a family of low socioeconomic status. Often, it is these children who end up without the prerequisite language skills and more often than not become struggling readers -- those requiring those tier 3 interventions -- all because of their language foundations.

The great news is that these students DO NOT have to end up out of the mainstream, using valuable tier 3 resources. In the average class, 1 to 5 percent of students do not progress adequately and need intensive interventions. Still, 40 percent of those students who are identified with learning disabilities are simply having trouble reading. If we can bring those students back into the mainstream with proven, scientifically-based brain fitness exercises, we can give them more promising futures as well as free up tier 3 interventions for those students who truly need them.

To learn more about the neurological science behind why these deficits occur in the brain, as well as how we can remedy them, I encourage you to gather your team together over a lunch and watch the webinar, RtI Tier 3 Intensive Interventions: A Neuroscience Perspective. Delivered by Dr. Sherry Francis, it offers fantastic insights to enlighten how we think about these students and their needs and abilities, as well as concrete solutions to help them achieve success.

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Education Trends, Reading & Learning, Special Education

Tags: academic assistance, accelerate learning, below grade level, child reading development, cognitive skills, early learning, how children learn, improving reading skills, intensity, intervention, language learning, learning to read, memory, processing rate, reading intervention, response to intervention tier iii, rti tier iii, struggling readers, struggling students, technology in education, webinar

Learning Difficulties in Children

• December 28, 2010 by Terri Zezula

Today, you are nine years old and in the third grade. You enjoy playing on the monkey bars at recess and drawing pictures of your dog and your fish. You also like watermelon hard candies, mac and cheese, and, to your friends’ bewilderment, you have an affinity for tuna fish sandwiches, especially when your mom has mixed crunchy celery in with the tuna.

But also unlike your friends, you have often felt that school seems harder than it should be. For some inexplicable reason, you tend to make more mistakes than your classmates. You have a hard time grasping math concepts that they seem to get easily. You don’t remember geography facts as well as they do. And because of those difficulties, you feel different and separate from those around you. You feel incapable. You feel like a failure. And because of it, you feel angry, sad and alone.

While this is a simplistic snapshot of the thoughts typical of children with learning difficulties, such an exercise reminds us of two things: the magic of being young, and the loneliness and frustration of a youngster who lives with these challenges.

According to the Child Development Institute, six to ten percent of school-aged kids in the US are learning disabled. The causes of learning disabilities vary from genetics to nutrition to pre-birth and early childhood injury, and the challenges that children with learning difficulties experience tend to fall into five different areas: spoken language, written language, math, reasoning and memory. They may simply work slowly. They may have disorganized thinking. They may have difficulty in sequencing tasks. They may have poor impulse control. They many experience these difficulties in any number of combinations and groupings.

All children have problems. They all experience challenges with school and in social relationships. But when these problems begin to appear in combinations and clusters, or if they persist for long periods, we as educators must take a close look and ask ourselves whether the student’s challenges fall within normal ranges, or whether they should be evaluated in more detail.

If an evaluation comes back with an indication that a student has a learning difficulty, it is absolutely essential for educators and parents to team up and support that student in every way possible. If an IEP (individualized education plan) is in order, everyone needs to be informed and on board to support the student’s new path.

What exactly can we do for these children to boost their self-esteem? Writing for the Learning Disabilities Association of Illinois, clinical psychologist Aoife Lyons offers a number of recommendations:

1. 1. Help children understand what the label means. This gives them a degree of ownership and control that they did not have before.
   2. Help them recognize their areas of strength as well as their areas of difficulty.
   3. Help them feel special and appreciated.
   4. Help them develop problem-solving and decision-making skills.

The good news is that, for the student who has experienced years of frustration and difficulty and loneliness, a positive diagnosis can be freeing. It gives them a clear explanation for why they have been experiencing all these feelings and difficulties. It allows them to once again be proud of who they are and see their differences in a new light. And, given the research, expertise and research based interventions available, it gives these students a clearer path forward to define--and achieve--their own success.

For further reading, check out:

1. 1. Self-Esteem and Learning Disabilities, Aofe Lyons, Ph.D.
   2. How Can Parents Foster Self-Esteem in Their Children? Dr. Robert Brooks, Ph.D.
   3. About Learning Disabilities, Child Development Institute

 

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Family Focus, Reading & Learning, Special Education

Tags: academic problems, academic success, cognitive skills, decision making, learning disabilities, math, memory, self-esteem, sequencing, struggling students

What Makes Superman So Great? Closing the Achievement Gap

• December 14, 2010 by Terri Zezula

He gets results! Rescuing the good citizens of Metropolis and instilling hope and wonder in all citizens. Yes, it’s a comical notion but we love to believe in the Superheroes and their ability to get things done!

When it comes to education, we look to our school district leaders to get things done – improved student achievement, high quality schools and low cost education programs that get maximum results. Especially in light of recent reports that show the US lagging behind other countries in reading, math, science and social studies. But there is one district in Louisiana that is getting things done – their results are proof that good leadership, a supporting community and proven education programs can turn a district around, from failing to proficient in a short amount of time.

Once a low performing district, the St. Mary Parish Public School System has achieved significant gains to become a role model for schools looking to make dramatic changes in their performance. After using the Fast ForWord® and Reading Assistant™ family of educational software products to strengthen students’ brain processing and literacy skills, students have increased their reading proficiency, and improved their achievement on state tests. In addition, fourth grade promotion rates have increased and test scores for student subgroups have improved, with the district making significant progress toward closing the achievement gap.

During the 2006-07 school year, St. Mary Parish started school-wide use of the Fast ForWord software at eight elementary schools that were in Academic Assistance. During the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years, the Fast ForWord program was extended to the rest of the district. Students in grades three through five work with the Fast ForWord products 30, 40 or 50 minutes a day, depending on the school. Since 2008, the district has implemented Reading Assistant software as well.  Reading Assistant combines advanced speech-verification technology with the latest reading science to help students strengthen their fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary.

Results

• Improved state test scores
• Increased fourth grade promotion rate
• Fewer students required to attend summer remediation
• Reduced achievement gap

From 2006 to 2010 the percentage of fourth graders performing at or above the Basic level on the initial LEAP ELA test increased from 55 percent to 78 percent. In 2008, for the first time in a decade, the district exceeded the state average for the percentage of fourth graders reading at or above Basic on the initial ELA test. In addition, for the first time in years, the district had no schools labeled Academically Unacceptable.

Similarly, from 2006 to 2010, the percentage of fourth graders performing at or above Basic on the initial LEAP test rose from 59 to 79 percent in Math, from 53 to 69 percent in Science, and from 59 to 72 percent in Social Studies.

Fourth Grade Initial LEAP Test
Subject	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	Net Change*
ELA	53%	54%	60%	55%	64%	73%	73%	78%	+25%
Math	54%	54%	62%	59%	59%	71%	69%	79%	+25%
Science	45%	56%	59%	53%	59%	66%	67%	69%	+24%
Social Studies	56%	58%	55%	59%	66%	63%	63%	72%	+16%

*Net Change is measured from the year before Fast ForWord participation to 2010, i.e. 2006-2010 for 4th graders.

Fourth Grade Promotion Rates

In addition to improving LEAP scores, St. Mary Parish collected longitudinal data about the percentage of fourth grade students each year who were promoted to fifth grade. From 2006 to 2010, the district’s fourth grade promotion rate improved from 65 to 85 percent.

Both general education and special education students showed a positive trend in fourth grade promotion rates. Between 2006 and 2010, the fourth grade promotion rate improved from 67 to 88 percent for general education students, and from 33 to 59 percent for special education students.

 “Over the past four years, our fourth grade students have made astounding gains, outpacing their state counterparts in English language arts as well as math and science,” said Superintendent Dr. Donald Aguillard. “Our fourth graders now rank 14th in the state, signifying a continuance of annual proficiency increases since 2006. As a result, the number of fourth graders who require summer remediation has declined significantly, and students’ self-confidence and motivation have soared. In reading and across the curriculum, our students are clearly benefitting from our ongoing efforts to provide effective, targeted instruction and interventions through the Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant programs.”

St. Mary Parish Public School System is an example of a district that is getting results – making significant gains in reading, math, social studies and science. Providing the standard for making our education system No. 1 in the world again!

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Categories: Education Trends, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant, Special Education

Tags: academic assistance, academic proficiency, academic success, accelerate learning, achievement gap, below grade level, elementary learning, elementary school learning, fluency, improving reading skills, increased test scores, LEAP, Louisiana, math, motivating students, reading comprehension, reading intervention, school leader effectiveness, science, social studies, struggling readers, struggling students, student reading growth, technology in education, vocabulary