How do the Fast ForWord® and Reading Assistant™ Products fit with the i3 Fund?
Innovative and evidence-based practices, programs and strategies
- Innovative: The Fast ForWord products combine the advantages of innovative computer technology with recent, cutting-edge discoveries in neuroscience in order to offer students a uniquely designed and patented environment in which to learn the cognitive, oral language, and reading skills they need to succeed academically.
- The Fast ForWord software is distinguished from other software in that it provides a minimum of 35,000 learning trials within 40 sessions (50 minutes each). The Fast ForWord Language and Literacy products use computer technology to slow down sounds to give the brain more time to recognize them. These products use computer technology to amplify the transitions from sound to sound, which enables the brain to process at faster and faster rates until it has created the neural pathways necessary to process the natural, rapid sounds of speech.
- The products get at the root cause of many learning problems and effect change in the way students assimilate, process, and remember information, thereby enabling students to be ready to learn the curriculum their instructors are teaching them.
- Research indicates that repeated oral readings with guidance and feedback greatly assist in the development of fluency, as well as word recognition and comprehension. Scientific Learning’s Reading Assistant provides students with an effective one-on-one guided oral reading environment. Wearing a headset with a noise-canceling microphone, the student reads illustrated texts off a computer screen. The software “listens” as the child reads and, using innovative speech verification technology, monitors for signs of difficulty and provides real-time assistance when the student is having problems.
- Evidence-based The Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant products are based on scientifically-validated research with validated field trials and comparison trial studies and have been shown to improve language and reading skills by an average of one to two years in 4-16 weeks.
Improve K-12 achievement and close achievement gaps
- After using the Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant products, students have shown gains in achievement on a variety of standardized tests and state assessments.
- Since 1997, students in almost 6,000 schools have achieved gains with the Fast ForWord products. For example, Fast ForWord participants in Everett Public Schools in Everett, Massachusetts, made significant gains in reading achievement following Fast ForWord product use during the 2007–2008 school year. Sixty-six percent of the students improved their MCAS Reading score in 2008 with an average improvement of 4.6 points.
- Reading Assistant was reviewed by the Florida Center for Reading Research, and received the Center’s highest rating (+++ = “all aspects of this component taught and/or practiced”) for all three of the skills it develops: Fluency, Vocabulary, and Reading Comprehension.
