The Fast ForWord program

The Fast ForWord program

The Fast ForWord program exercises the brain and increases its ability to perform four basic cognitive functions that are essential to learning; Memory, Attention, Processing, and Sequencing. Increasing the brain’s efficiency and capacity to perform these tasks has been proven to have a dramatic and lasting impact on student achievement at any age.

The Fast ForWord Success Stories

St Mary Parish Public School System, Centerville, LA, implemented the Fast ForWord products to improve literacy proficiency and achievement on state tests. Students who used Fast ForWord achieved significant gains on the Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP) and the Integrated Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (iLEAP). As a result, the district has reduced the number of students retained in the fourth grade and the numbers of students required to attend mandatory summer remediation. Challenges:

• Economically disadvantaged community
• Low state test scores
• Schools rated “Academically Unacceptable”

The Fast ForWord Implementation

The Fast ForWord program is utilized by targeted students on a daily basis anywhere from 30 to 50 minutes per day. Completion of individual Fast ForWord products may be as rapid as 8 to 12 weeks depending on student ability and protocol selection. Students will use the program under the supervision of a trained coach that will monitor their progress through a set of prescribed exercises that constantly adapt to students individual needs. Immediately accessible student data will direct coaches to students in need of strategic support on identified exercises. An integrated pre and post test, Reading Progress Indicator, will provide a norm reference assessment tool to track student gains relative to their reading ability.

The Fast ForWord Formative Assessment

Scientific Learning Progress Tracker is an online data analysis and reporting tool that enables educators to monitor individual, classroom, school, or district performance of students working with the Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant products. Educators get clear, daily, action-oriented information showing student progress over time, in specific reading and cognitive skills areas. Progress Tracker reports provide students, teachers, schools by increasing student achievement and making teachers’ instruction and school curriculum more effective:

• Automatic analysis of group and individual progress, including diagnostic and prescriptive information, displayed in graphs and tables.
• Timely and specific intervention guidance, providing recommendations for maximizing the impact of classroom reading instruction and the effectiveness of the Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant products.

The Fast ForWord Summative Assessment

Reading Progress Indicator provides educators with summative assessment information. Reading Progress Indicator is administered before and after use of Scientific Learning’s Fast ForWord products. Reading Progress Indicator allows educators to:

• Quickly assess four key skill areas: phonemic awareness, decoding, vocabulary, and comprehension.
• Automatically score assessments and report results to parents, teachers, and administrators.
• Access accurate progress information that correlates to nationally recognized normed assessments.
• Access to reports that provide assessment results for individuals, groups, schools and districts. For individuals, results are reported in grade equivalent scores, reading level gain and national percentile scores. School and district level reports show results in percentile growth and reading level gain.