Elementary Reading Programs

Fluency & Comprehension Software

Do any of these symptoms apply to your elementary school child?

• Struggles to read with fluency
  
• Resists reading
  
• Skips or substitutes words when reading
  
• Not making progress in reading
  
• Reading comprehension difficulties

Our remedial reading programs help these common issues by targeting the cause of the problem.

In elementary school, your child makes the transition from learning to read to reading to learn -- it becomes all about reading comprehension. Because learning skills develop sequentially, time lost learning to read in elementary school will dampen academic outcomes later on. Our elementary reading programs focus on cognitive skills, reading fluency and literal reading comprehension, establishing a foundation for middle and high school reading success.
Overview of reading programs

Comprehensive Approach To Reading

Our elementary school reading programs start with Fast ForWord Language, the first in a research based reading program series, that works directly on the impediments to reading, strengthening fundamental cognitive skills and filling in the gaps in your child's reading make-up, the ultimate goal being to improve reading comprehension.

Phonics and Phonemic Awareness
Many younger elementary children do not have the auditory processing skills required to hear the sounds inside words. This makes it very difficult to learn to sound words out. Gemm uses Fast ForWord software to build a secure cognitive foundation. It starts one step earlier than phonics reading programs, by giving students the processing skills to hear phonemes, the tiny sounds inside words required for reading.
Cognitive skills training

Reading Fluency
If decoding is not automatic it draws on brain power that is required for comprehension. Reading fluency is a predictor of future reading comprehension skill, because, like comprehension, reading fluency -- reading at natural language speed with prosody, inflection -- requires automatic decoding. Gemm builds reading fluency by first building the cognitive foundation, and then developing the vocabulary, language structure, spelling and other skills for language familiarity, both spoken and in text.
Reading fluency program

Reading Comprehension
By 4th grade in elementary school, literal reading comprehension is a required skill that only gets more challenging in 5th grade and beyond. Our elementary reading programs gradually introduce reading comprehension skills, first in simple categorization and sentence completion exercises, escalating to more complex text to picture matching and paragraph completion exercises later on.
Improving elementary reading comprehension

Spelling and Vocabulary
An important part of most remedial reading programs involves spelling and vocabulary skills. Reading fluency requires strong spelling skills -- spelling patterns are how we convert all words into sight words. Reading comprehension requires strong vocabulary knowledge. Each reading program in our software series has an exercise devoted to spelling and another focused on vocabulary.
Spelling programs

Service Details For Elementary Children

After an initial assessment, Gemm will develop an individualized program to meet your child's reading goals. Most elementary age students take 4-8 months to complete our programs. In that time, they will likely complete two cognitive reading programs, and 1-2 programs in the Fast ForWord reading series.

Elementary age school children enjoy our software. It does not feel like a remedial reading program, text heavy and instruction based. Instead, our software has an interactive computer game feel that engages students, as do the point scores, and the interim level milestones embedded in each exercise. We add online prizes at Gemm City, and physical certificates sent by mail to the mix, to keep student enthusiasm high.

Finally, the software is adaptive, meaning students progress at their own pace -- not too difficult (and frustrating), and not too easy (and boring). Parents tells us their children like the program because they are "good at Gemm Learning." For many of our students, it's a precious confidence boost in a frustrating world.
Service Features

Expected Outcomes

Unlike most remedial reading programs, where progress is incremental, most elementary students start to see gains from our program in just a few weeks. The first changes are typically in confidence, where students start to recognize that words are made up of sounds and they can hear those sounds. This confidence translates into more willingness to sound out unfamiliar words while reading.

Next come indications of improved fluency, more willingness to read independently, and most often, clear signs that reading comprehension is starting to improve. Children interact with our elementary reading programs differently -- in effort and attendance. These compliance differences and the unique makeup of each child, mean that outcomes do vary dramatically by student. Over the next 1-2 years, depending on how long you stay with us, your child should continue to see improvements in reading comprehension and grades, an easier time with homework, improved focus, and growing confidence.