FAQs - What is Fast ForWord?
What is Fast ForWord?
What Kind of Results Can Fast ForWord Achieve?
What is the Research behind Fast ForWord?
How is Fast ForWord different from other reading-intervention programs?
What populations can benefit from using Fast ForWord?
Why is Fast ForWord necessary?
How many people have used Fast ForWord?
How many programs are there?
How Does Fast ForWord Help Struggling Readers?
How Does Fast ForWord Teach Phonemic Awareness?
How does Fast ForWord work?
Why does Fast ForWord work?
What are the Technical Requirements for using Fast ForWord?
What is Fast ForWord?
Fast ForWord programs are a series of computer-delivered exercises that develop the cognitive skills necessary for successful reading and learning.
The Fast ForWord family of reading-intervention programs build learning capacity by applying neuroscience principles to strengthen cognitive skills. Through the development of improved neuro-cognitive skills, the Fast ForWord programs create fast, effective, and enduring gains in users’ reading and learning abilities. Fast ForWord was developed by Scientific Learning Corporation.
What kind of results can Fast ForWord achieve?
Using prescribed protocols, students can achieve a 1- to 2-year gain in reading skills in eight to twelve weeks.
What is the Research behind Fast ForWord?
The Fast ForWord programs are based on over 30 years of scientific research into the way the brain learns.
The programs evolved from the work of noted research scientists Drs. Michael Merzenich and Bill Jenkins at the University of California, San Francisco, and Drs. Paula Tallal and Steven Miller at Rutgers University.
Their research collaboration resulted in several key findings.
First, they established that the core cognitive and linguistic attributes (Memory, Attention, Processing and Sequencing) that define a student’s ability to benefit from classroom instruction can be successfully improved through intensive intervention using advanced technologies. For example, with the help of computers, the complex speech sounds in sentences -- such as phonemes -- could be slowed down and digitally enhanced so that they could be easily differentiated.
The scientists discovered that by using this acoustically modified speech technology in an intensive, adaptive product, students could build a wide range of critical language and reading skills such as phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, decoding, syntax, grammar, and other skills that had previously been inaccessible to them.
Dr. Merzenich, who is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and is also the Chief Scientific Officer for Posit Science, and Dr. Jenkins (currently Senior Vice President of Product Development at Scientific Learning) are internationally known for their research in the science of brain plasticity, which is the concept that the brain changes as we learn new skills.
Drs. Tallal and Miller are experts in research on the neurological basis of language and reading development and their disorders, such as dyslexia.
Dr. Tallal is currently co-director of the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience at Rutgers and an active participant on many scientific advisory boards and government committees for both developmental language disorders and learning disabilities. She has published over 150 papers on the topic of language and learning and is the recipient of national and international honors.
Dr. Miller, currently Senior Vice President of Research at Scientific Learning, has extensive experience in organizing clinical research studies and conducting longitudinal studies of children who have language and reading problems.
Visit our Research page for information about specific foundational FFW research
How is Fast ForWord different from other reading-intervention programs?
Fast ForWord is the only program that is based on a solid foundation of neuroscience research. This research has enabled Scientific Learning Corporation to develop a range of programs that build the learning capacity of individuals. Scientific Learning holds 70 patents relating to a wide variety of practical applications of neuroscience and the advancement of learning skills.
- Over 85 research studies with 35,000 participants show student academic gains
- Over 700 publications describe the foundational research of the programs
- Clinical trials funded by the National Institutes of Health in USA have confirmed the efficacy of Fast ForWord
What populations can benefit from using Fast ForWord?
A wide variety of people who are struggling with reading, language, and learning problems can benefit from using the Fast ForWord programs, including children with Autism and Asperger’s Disease, people suffering from dyslexia, special-education populations, English language learners, and students at all grade levels.
Why is Fast ForWord necessary?
The statistics speak for themselves:
- Approximately 25% of all high school students read at “below basic” levels.
- 6 million students in grades 6-12 read “below basic” levels.
- Students in the lowest 25% of achievement are 20 times more likely to drop out of high school than those in the highest 25%.
- 74% of children who are unsuccessful readers in grade 3 are still unsuccessful readers in grade 9.¹
- Levels of reading performance have remained relatively unchanged for more than two decades.
- Only 52% of students with learning disabilities will complete high school.
- Learning disabled students drop out of high school at more than twice the rate of their non-disabled peers.²
- At least 50% of juvenile delinquents have undiagnosed, untreated learning disabilities.³
- 31% of adolescents with learning disabilities will be arrested within five years of leaving high school.4
¹ (Journal of Child Neurology, January, 1995); ² (Congressional Quarterly Researcher, December, 1993); ³ (National Center for State Courts and the Educational Testing Service, 1977); 4 (National Transition Longitudinal Study, 1991)
Fast ForWord programs are designed to provide another tool for educators to address the literacy challenges in the Australian school system.
How many people have used Fast ForWord?
- Over 1,000,000 programs have been used by students
- 4,000 schools use Fast ForWord
- 35 countries now offer the programs
- Many clinics and hospitals
How many programs are there?
There are 11 Fast ForWord programs; each builds specific skills that academically advance the student. In addition, we have Fast ForWord Progress Tracker, an online tool that allows educators and clinical professionals to monitor student progress and results.
The programs are:
- Fast ForWord Language Basics
- Fast ForWord Language
- Fast ForWord Literacy
- Fast ForWord Language to Reading
- Fast ForWord Literacy Advanced
- Fast ForWord to Reading Prep
- Fast ForWord to Reading 1
- Fast ForWord to Reading 2
- Fast ForWord to Reading 3
- Fast ForWord to Reading 4
- Fast ForWord to Reading 5
How Does Fast ForWord Help Struggling Readers?
Reading starts with phonemic awareness - the ability to notice, think about and manipulate the individual sounds (or phonemes) in words. Phonemes are the smallest units of sound in our language that can make a difference in the meaning of a word (as in cat vs rat).
Phonemic awareness is an auditory skill. A child may have satisfactory hearing but still not be able to recognise phonemes in context. Phonemic awareness and auditory processing are the main areas where children with language and reading difficulties may differ from other children.
A child is said to have an auditory processing problem when he or she has difficulty perceiving, decoding, remembering and retrieving information they hear. These auditory skills are necessary for children learning to read and spell.
We know that children's reading problems appear early in their school years. These problems do not diminish over time, but persist into adulthood. Children who fall behind in 'pre-reading skills' in Kindergarten and Year One tend to fall further behind in later grades.
The result is that about 40 percent of adults have reading problems severe enough to hinder their enjoyment of reading, according to the USA National Institute of Child Health and Human Development: ( '30 Years of Research: What We Now Know About How Children Learn to Read').
How Does Fast ForWord Teach Phonemic Awareness?
Before children can make the sound-letter associations necessary in reading, they must first be able to recognise the sounds and sound combinations that the letters represent. All of the exercises in Fast ForWord help a child recognise these word sounds – first in isolation, and then in groups of sounds, in words, and finally, in sentences.
How does Fast ForWord work?
Develops Learning MAPs™: Memory, Attention, Processing and sequencing, the underlying cognitive processes required for reading and learning.
Incorporates the Fast Power Learning™ Formula—Frequency and intensity, Adaptivity, Simultaneous development, and Timely motivation—proven learning techniques based on decades of neuroscience research.
Learning MAPs
Fast ForWord programs apply proven learning principles....Memory, Attention, Processing and Sequencing, to improve the essential cognitive processes that a student needs for reading and learning.
MEMORY Improves the ability to retain information both short and long term. This is essential for word recognition, comprehension of complex sentences, and remembering instruction.
ATTENTION Enhances the ability to focus on tasks and ignore distractions.
PROCESSING Allows you to see, analyse and discriminate images and sounds quickly enough to discriminate their differences; a prerequisite for phonemic awareness and reading.
SEQUENCING This is a cognitive skill that relies on memory, attention and processing and is essential for phonics, word fluency, reading and oral comprehension. Sequencing places information in a logical order which in turn allows for improved memory attention and processing.
Why does Fast ForWord work?
Combining patented technology with over 30 years of research on how the brain learns, the Fast ForWord programs develop the brain's ability to learn better and faster. Each exercise efficiently targets and develops the cognitive skills needed for successful reading and learning.
What are the Technical Requirements for using Fast ForWord?
View the Technical Specifications
Want to know more? Contact us.