Fast ForWord Software

Learning and reading program at home or in center

Fast ForWord is proven brain fitness software that targets the primary causes of reading and learning difficulties, including dyslexia.  By working at a fundamental level it is able to help a wide range of individuals.  Students work at their own pace on protocols that Gemm customizes to their specific needs.

Fast ForWord research combines the ground-breaking cognitive research of Paula Tallal on how children read and learn with the neuroscience of Dr. Merzenich's whose work on brain plasticity and how best to coax the brain to adapt and learn differently is world renowned.

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Gemm Learning is the largest private provider of the Fast ForWord software program in the US.   Most of our students work on Fast ForWord at home with a remote coach, our Gemm at Home service.   We also offer an in center and in-home tutoring service with Fast ForWord in Westchester, NY and Fairfield, CT.

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How Fast ForWord Helps Reading

By building processing speed, Fast ForWord improves the ability to hear the phonemes needed for sounding out when reading.  This allows the brain to make automatic matches of text and word memory, thereby making decoding much more natural, more subconscious like riding a bike.  This frees up brain capacity for reading comprehension.  The program also helps essential reading skills such as decoding accuracy, vocabulary and spelling.

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How Fast ForWord Helps Learning

By speeding up the ability to process language, i.e., auditory processing, Fast ForWord essentially slows the world down for students, making learning easier.  It also improves study skills such as working memory and focus.  It helps speech and language in younger children.  Students experience gains in confidence and improved learning skills leading to homework independence, better grades from better test taking skills, an the ability to engage and follow instruction in class, amongst other gains. 

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The Evidence

There are a large number of documented Fast ForWord study results that show a consistent ability to improve auditory processing and other processing glitches that cause learning and reading difficulties.  Being able to hear every sound in every word requires lightning fast processing that is beyond many students without intervention.   And so Fast ForWord Language and other programs in this innovative software product suite address a widespread need.

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Targeted Skills

Fast ForWord software assumes children with auditory processing disorders almost always have at least mild working memory and attention issues -- these skills lag because they have not been adequately exercised due to the lower quality auditory input. 

Its main goal is to increase auditory processing and related memory and attention skills to natural language speed.  It adapts to each child.  It stress-tests a wide number of skills, moving quickly through the exercises that are not needed so that a student is working only on his or her specific learning needs.

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The main skills targeted are:

• Auditory processing.  Inaccurate listening impacts following instruction in class and reading -- sounding out in younger ones and reading comprehension and fluency later on.   Find out more about the link between reading and language, and how Fast ForWord helps auditory processing here.

• Working memory.   Poor retention impedes reading comprehension and following instruction in class.   Fast ForWord helps working memory.
• Attention stamina.  An inability to stay engaged while reading (and in class) is common in children with any kind of auditory processing issue.  Fast ForWord improves attention stamina.
• Sequencing.  Consonants, sentences and expressive thought all require the ability to sequence with ease.

Fast ForWord:  Quick Primer

Fast ForWord automates and strengthens the same way an athlete builds muscle memory, through repetition.  Each day the student is prompted to make hundreds of increasingly more complex decisions in quick succession, using the neuroscience principles of frequency & intensity, and shaping -- progressing in tiny incremental steps. 

Once mastered, these new skills are used everyday and so they endure, making this one-time program a compelling alternative to tutoring which tends to require an ongoing commitment.

The Problem.  Good reading requires accurate listening.  For children who hear every sound in every word, reading is simply a matter of transposing language to a new format using their ABC's.  But, for those with a limited or muddy speech vocabulary, reading is like being confronted with a whole new language.

Scientific Learning's idea.  The most common cause of poor listening accuracy is that the brain does not process fast enough to discriminate between sounds.  To improve reading, Scientific Learning came up with a simple idea:  when you teach a child to hit a baseball you start slow then speed-up - why not do the same with the brain?

Their solution.  They created Fast ForWord, a slow pitch machine for the brain.  This software is the first and so far only program based on neuro-scientific principles developed by founder of Fast ForWord, Dr. Merzenich.  At regular intervals students receive unexpected surprises in the form of fun activity on the screen or sounds.  These surprises are designed to produce a spike in norepinephrine, activity that promotes brain change.  Many of the exercises focus on memory in conjunction with other skills.  Fast ForWord does this to encourage the brain as a system to reorganize.  Every minute of computer time is productive, every minute working toward improved learning.

Quick Facts

There are 70,000 children around the country working on the software right now, and > one million who have already completed it.   Over 40,000 of these students have been part of highly scrutinized scientific studies, and over 700 scientific articles have been written on the subject.   The Fast ForWord empirical evidence --  in trials and studies -- confirms that the software is indeed able to boost learning and reading skills for the vast majority of students who follow the protocol.

Gemm provides this software in a convenient, affordable and parent/student-friendly service format.  While the software is critical, our tutoring service support is what differentiates our Westchester dyslexia help and Connecticut reading help. Learn More

For a Fast ForWord brochure, click here.