Fast ForWord is an online language and reading intervention (mediation) software that targets learning struggles at their core, starting in the brain. Your child will complete a variety of auditory processing, attention, and memory exercises that look like reading or pre-reading games.

Fast ForWord® is an evidence-based intervention program that uses a unique 3-part approach to deliver fast gains to the most struggling students. The approach is based on:

• Prepare:Fast ForWord prepares the foundation for reading by finding and targeting hidden
  culprits for slow reading progress (Memory, Attention, Processing, and Sequencing – MAPS).
• Practice:Fast ForWord engages students in intensive, personalized, and progressively complex
  practice sessions that work on language and reading skills.
• Reinforce:As students read aloud, the program listens and provides corrective reading feedback.
  This real-world reading strengthens newly learned skills and rapidly builds fluency.

Who is it for?

Fast ForWord can be used to act as a mediation for better reading for elementary school children, starting at age 5, through middle school, and all the way up to high school with:

• reading difficulties
• auditory processing disorder (APD)
• speech or language impairment
• mild to moderate autism
• dyslexia
• ADD/ADHD
• a learning disability, or
• children who are struggling at school yet may not qualify for extra help

Fast ForWord is easy to implement in a variety of settings, including at home, the classroom, computer lab, before and after school programs, and summer schools.

Why Fast ForWord Works?

Fast ForWord was developed in a university lab 20 years ago and continues to stay true to those roots. In fact, the software continues to be independently researched, with new studies published in peer-reviewed journals confirming the science and results.

No other reading and language intervention program has been as thoroughly researched and reviewed as Fast ForWord. The program has more than 55 patents in neuroscience and education and more than 250 research studies verifying its effectiveness. Some of the most impressive research comes from Stanford and Harvard and shows actual physiological changes in the brain after struggling readers used Fast ForWord.

In the years since they started using the Fast ForWord program, schools in the St. Mary Parish school District in Louisiana showed dramatic improvements in their reading achievement as measured by the LEAP English Language Arts assessment

How Does It Work?

The ability to read starts with how the brain perceives and processes sound. Developed by world-renowned neuroscientists, Fast ForWord directly targets the underlying causes of language and reading difficulty.

Think of it like this: you get where you want to more quickly if you’re using a well-paved highway instead of pothole surfaced streets, right?

It’s as if the brains of the struggling readers (when doing reading and language activities) are functioning with bumpy surface streets – the pathways and connections are there, but the route is less efficient and slower, as evidenced by the lighter, more diffuse activity. Proficient readers, on the other hand, have nicely paved neural networks (highways) when doing reading activities and their activation is concentrated, more intense, and more efficient.

Fast Forword works on the following skills:

• Processing Rate refers to both the speed and accuracy with which the brain processes information. This is important because all literacy development — from learning to talk to learning to read to writing proficiently — is dependent on your child’s ability to process sounds and words quickly.
• Attention is the ability to focus and pay careful attention to details. Teachers may use the term “poor listening skills” if your child is having trouble attending and following directions.
• Recall & Memory is the ability to retrieve information from long term memory. “Working memory” is holding information in the short term, which is necessary for your child to complete tasks such as learning, reasoning, and comprehending.
• Sequencing is the ability to place information in the correct order such as days of the week.
  This is important for your child to process and comprehend information.
• Reading and Literacy Skills such as phonemic awareness, phonics, and auditory discrimination of sounds and sound sequencing are important foundational skills your child needs to successfully read – which is the basis of all academic learning.
• Vocabulary and Grammar refer to understanding the meaning of words and the rules for written and oral language. This is important for your child since it’s much easier to read fluently when they understand the words and structure.