Students With Special Needs Improve Reading Skills, Confidence, and Motivation Using Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant
/
Students with special needs gain up to 1.5 years in reading skills in 4-6-weeks.
Learn 2 Focus thought this was such an awesome tribute to an amazing program, that we wanted to share the story with our readers!
The McKinley Children’s Center’s Brain Lab uses the Fast ForWord® and Reading Assistant™ online learning programs to provide individualized instruction for students with disabilities at Canyon View School, and through summer and afterschool programs. As a result, students have made dramatic, enduring gains in their language and reading skills, and have improved their confidence and motivation. Thanks to the Brain Lab’s focus on early intervention, some students have even exited special education and moved from non-proficient to proficient on state tests.
The Fast ForWord online reading intervention uses the principles of neuroplasticity — the ability of the brain to rewire and improve — to treat the underlying cause of language and reading difficulties, once and for all. It was developed by neuroscientists to address reading skills while concurrently developing foundational skills including memory, attention, processing and sequencing.
“The Fast ForWord program is different from other reading interventions in a number of ways,” said Jackson. “Many children with special needs require a great deal of repetition. In a 30-minute Fast ForWord session, students can get a lot more repetition of foundational skills — like phonological awareness, phonological processing and vocabulary sight words — than I could ever provide in a one-on-one session. It allows each student to learn and progress at his or her own pace, and makes it easy to self-monitor. It also enables me to individualize instruction without a lot of the prep work required by other programs.”
“Overall, the reading grade level of students participating in the summer literacy program has improved anywhere from .2 years to more than 1.5 years after completion of the six-week session,” said Jackson.
In the afterschool program, the Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant programs are geared to the individual needs of each student.
“A student with autism who had struggled with reading comprehension for most of his short school career began attending the afterschool program. After 12 weeks, his parents reported that his grades improved in school. At middle school, he made the honor roll and his parents attribute much of his success to receiving Brain Lab services,” said Jackson.
Read the complete case study:
http://www.scilearn.com/sites/default/files/imported/alldocs/cp/cs/CanyonViewCaseStudy.pdf
