The Science of Learning

Students in the Palmyra and West Jefferson Hills school districts improve their reading achievement levels on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment 12/16/11 Media Contact: Jessica LindlSenior Vice President of MarketingScientific Learning Corporation(510) [email protected] Investor Contact: Bob FellerChief Financial OfficerScientific Learning Corporation(510) [email protected] Oakland, Calif. — Dec. 16, 2011 — More than three-quarters of Pleasant Hills Middle School students who used the Fast ForWord® and Reading Assistant™ family of educational software products from Scientific Learning Corp. (NASDAQ:SCIL) improved their reading achievement by one or more levels on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) in 2011.  Located in southeast Pennsylvania, the school is part of the West Jefferson Hills School District where another school, Jefferson Elementary, also saw reading achievement gains among many students using the Fast ForWord program. On the other side of the state near Harrisburg, the Palmyra Area School District is also reporting gains among students who participated in the Fast ForWord program, including those who struggle most with reading.  “A recent analysis of two years worth of data supports what we believed to be true, that students who use these products are making great progress,” said Dr. Collene Van Noord, superintendent of Palmyra Area School District.  “What’s particularly exciting is that we’re seeing gains across the board, in the general population, as well as among special ed students, English language learners, and secondary students who have struggled for years.  We couldn’t be more pleased with these results.” “The leaders in Palmyra and West Jefferson are to be applauded for their vision.  They have embraced what neuroscience research tells us about how the brain learns and, in turn, provided their students access to products that strengthen brain processing and literacy skills, and increase reading proficiency,” said Dr. William Jenkins, co-founder and chief scientific officer at Scientific Learning.  “These results clearly show that when students can read […]

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 […]

Dr. William Jenkins and Sherrelle Walker will present one-day summit on how brain fitness can help students improve one to two years in reading levels in eight to 12 weeks 7/20/11 Media Contact: Jessica LindlSenior Vice President, Marketing and Product ManagementScientific Learning Corporation(510) [email protected] Investor Contact: Bob FellerChief Financial OfficerScientific Learning Corporation(510) [email protected] Oakland, Calif. — July 20, 2011 — Scientific Learning Corp. (NASDAQ:SCIL), makers of the Fast ForWord® and Reading Assistant™ family of products, will host a New Science of Learning Brain Summit at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel & Towers on July 26. The Brain Summit is being held in coordination with the Building Learning Communities (BLC) Conference, sponsored by November Learning. The BLC conference, which is designed to have an immediate and long range impact on improving teaching and learning, will be held at the same hotel in downtown Boston with pre-conference sessions July 24-26 and main conference sessions July 27-29. At the Brain Summit, Scientific Learning’s founder and chief scientific officer, Dr. William Jenkins, and chief education officer, Sherrelle Walker, will discuss how current neuroscience research is contributing to viable, innovative and impactful solutions for improving academic performance. They will describe the importance of brain fitness in education and explain how students can exercise their brains to overcome literacy challenges and improve their capacity to learn. Participants will learn how schools can accelerate learning for students of diverse ages and ability levels by combining good teaching, good content, and exercises that stimulate the brain to build brain fitness in the areas of English language arts and reading. In the Boston area, school districts such as Everett Public Schools, an urban district located a few miles north of Boston, are realizing positive results by helping students build brain fitness with the Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant programs from Scientific Learning. After participating in the programs in 2009-10, elementary and […]

Districts using Scientific Learning’s Fast ForWord program improve achievement for students of a wide spectrum of abilities, and reduce costs for intervention services 5/31/11 Media Contact: Jessica LindlSenior Vice President, Marketing and Product ManagementScientific Learning Corporation(510) [email protected] Investor Contact: Bob FellerChief Financial OfficerScientific Learning Corporation(510) [email protected] Oakland, Calif. — May 31, 2011 — According to the U.S. Department of Education, the average per pupil expenditure in U.S. schools today is just over $10,000. The Center for Special Education Finance calculates that for students with disabilities, the cost is 1.9 times more expensive. Even with some state and federal aid, this equates to, on average, nearly $19,000 a year to educate each student with special needs — a significant financial responsibility for school districts especially in these times of severe budget cuts.  However, innovative districts such as Westfield-Washington Schools in central Indiana and St. Mary Parish Public Schools in Louisiana have found a way to reduce special education expenses by effectively addressing foundational reading and learning issues, thereby reducing unnecessary referrals to special education. In 2006, both school districts implemented a brain fitness program called Fast ForWord®. The software program consists of intensive, adaptive exercises that build brain fitness in the areas of memory, attention, processing, and sequencing — cognitive skills essential for learning and reading success. Fast ForWord supports special education students, as well as those working at or above grade level, by improving their ability to learn and retain knowledge. This results in increased reading proficiency, improved comprehension of other subject areas, increased self-confidence, and reduced costs for intervention services. Westfield-Washington Schools In Westfield-Washington Schools, located just north of Indianapolis, schools have realized savings in the reduction of inaccurate referrals to special education. Through the use of the Fast ForWord program, schools have prevented the misidentification of struggling students as special needs students, so doctors […]

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.

Schools using the Fast ForWord educational software program can accelerate learning for students in a wide spectrum of ages and abilities, and improve spring test scores 3/29/11 Media Contact: Jessica LindlSenior Vice President, Marketing and Product ManagementScientific Learning Corporation(510) [email protected] Investor Contact: Bob FellerChief Financial OfficerScientific Learning Corporation(510) [email protected] Oakland, Calif. — March 29, 2011 — On state tests administered each spring, even bright young learners worry about their performance. Take Garrett, for example. The son of an elementary school principal, Garrett had the benefit of a strong preschool education and dedicated parents who read with him every day. Yet, Garrett struggled with reading in first and second grades, and scored below grade level on the Idaho Reading Indicator (IRI). Then, in the third grade, everything changed. Garrett gained 3.7 years of growth, jumping from a second-grade to nearly a sixth-grade reading level. For the first time, he also scored at the proficient level in reading on his state test, the Idaho Standards Achievement Test (ISAT). What changed? From September to April, Garrett participated in a brain fitness program called Fast ForWord® that exercised his cognitive muscles and improved his brain function. This allowed Garrett to better take advantage of the content presented to him in school and at home, and maintain an accelerated rate of learning even after the program ended. As Garrett’s story illustrates, successful preparation for state tests involves more than high quality, standards-based subject area instruction. Forward-thinking schools are accelerating learning and improving performance on high-stakes tests by building students' brain fitness. By exercising the parts of the brain that contribute to learning — memory, attention, processing and sequencing — schools can improve students’ ability to learn and retain knowledge. At Discovery Elementary, the Title I school in Idaho Falls where Garrett’s father, Ken Marlowe, serves as principal, students began using the […]