About Gemm Learning

Who We Are

Gemm Learning is staffed by certified educators who provide hands on, remote monitoring, guidance and hand-holding for families working on intensive, mainly neuroscience based, learning software at home.
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Gemm Learning was founded on the idea that neuroscience software offers fantastic potential to change lives, but that the routine and intensity required is only really possible at home -- an in center schedule is hard to keep up -- and with oversight, a personal trainer approach.

The convenience and cost savings of working from home is of course hard to beat. It is also true, however, that at home software tends to be misused and/or neglected. That's where Gemm Learning comes in.

Our certified educators, student incentives program and online support helps students outperform their in-center peers. We believe this hybrid model -- cutting edge software with personalized remote coaching and support -- represents the future of educational software, certainly for cognitive and reading programs where frequency and intensity are essential.

What We Do

We provide cognitive and reading softare for K-12 children and adults throughout the US and Canada. While our head office is in NY, we have one learning center -- in Greenwich, CT -- where we refine our best practices and test new products.

We combine a high touch, personal contact approach -- when it comes to learning, one on one conversation is essential -- with a multi-faceted digital support, i.e., weekly emailed reports, a dedicated website for parent support, www.MyGemm.com, and another for student incentives, www.GemmCity.com. We will do remote sessions on your computer to help you with any set up issues, or to help your child if there are difficulties.

Our software uploads activity daily so that we are able to monitor every click. Our staff, certified educators, are able to monitor progress as if they were in your home. The combination of personal touch service and technology has earned us a 96% client satisfaction rating, which makes us very proud.

Right now, the vast majority of our students work on Fast ForWord. This is not by choice. Our founding principle was to be agnostic, to work with any reading software that works, which means:

• It is robust, showing good results in a variety of cases and circumstances. There are other programs that seem to have good results, but they have exacting requirements, that are not often met.
  

• Students enjoy/don't mind doing it. Again, we have come across software that seems to have results, but children hate it and so compliance is a challenge. Fast ForWord is engaging for all ages.

• We can monitor home sessions. This is an essential and unique aspect of Fast ForWord. As protocol managers, we see every click, every error, every skipped trial. This insight into the home activity allows us to manage the program as if we were in the home, helping us be effective coaches.

How Gemm Got Started

Gemm Learning was founded by Geoff Nixon, whose son, Matthew, did the Fast ForWord program when he was seven years old. About halfway through Matthew's vocabulary exploded. He was more able to follow directions, he became more talkative and finally started to make progress in his reading, a wonderful development for a child who had made minimal progress in the prior two years.

While the results were fantastic, the service and support his family received were not. He had a wonderful Speech and Language Pathologist who helped him get started, but after that his family was essentially on its own. He had to deal with complicated software issues, phone calls to the clinician were understandably hard to get returned as the clinician provided Fast ForWord as an ancillary business, as do most clinicians, and finally, he was on his own as to how to motivate his son.

The vision here was to change this typical experience, to make the at home Fast ForWord experience not only manageable for the parent, but also more motivating for the student. He shut down his hedge fund at the end of 2005 and started Gemm Learning. Gemm is the initials of Geoff's family -- Geoff, then his children Emma and Matthew, and his wife, Anne McCool (or "Mom"!) -- a personal name reflecting the family story behind Gemm.

Our Mission

Gemm was founded with this mission:

• Providing passionate service and cutting edge science that consistently delivers great outcomes for kids.
• Building brain plasticity awareness. Helping parents understand that it is possible to impact how children learn.
• Finding ways to make our service available to students at all income levels.
• Core values: exceed service expectations, be trustworthy to customers and vendors, and embrace new advances.

More About Gemm

To read articles written by Gemm follow this link:
Articles

To read about our Advisory Board click here