Fast ForWord Literacy

Develops the listening and language skills that gives participants the solid foundation skills they need to become better readers including:

• Auditory discrimination
• Language structures
• Working memory
• Listening comprehension
• Phonological fluency

Fast ForWord Literacy consists of five exercises:

Lunar Tunes Participants persuade the space musician to drop from the ceiling of the auditorium and play for the audience by matching spoken words in increasingly complex grids of speakers. This exercise improves the participants’s ability to recognise spoken words by using auditory and visual-spatial working memory to locate matching syllables.
Space Racer The rider on the space cycle moves faster and faster as the participant correctly identifies the correct sequence of multiple sound sweeps. This exercise improves the speed at which the participant identifies and understands rapid, successive changes in sound (listening accuracy), and improves the participant’s ability to hold sounds in memory.
Spin Master As the space DJ spins the discs on the turntable, participants attempt to identify identical sounds.This phonological fluency exercise increases in difficulty across three dimensions: synthetic speech emphasis, presentation rate, phoneme discrimination.
Stellar Stories Participants follow spoken directions and also listen to descriptions of activities and events displayed in pictures on their screens. They then select the picture that correctly illustrates the description. This exercise improves skills in listening comprehension, English language conventions, and following directions through a combination of increasingly complex activities.

What to Expect from Fast ForWord Literacy

Language & Reading Skills Developed by Fast ForWord Literacy

• Listening accuracy & comprehension
• Auditory sequencing
• Auditory word recognition
• Listening in a quick & efficient manner
• Phonological memory, accuracy and fluency
• Phonological structure
• General & curricular vocabulary
• English language conventions
• Following complex directions and commands 

Cognitive Skills Developed by Fast ForWord Literacy 

• Working memory & visual symbol - sound associations from long term memory
• Retrieval from long term memory
• Sustained and focused attention 
• Auditory processing of tonal sweeps
• Auditory & visual – spatial working memory
• Sequencing ability of rapidly presented sound pairs
• Auditory & linguistic processing at word level
• Phonological memory