Helping English Language Learners

• Adopted -- another language heard at birth?

• Immigrants, moved to the US after child's birth?

• English not spoken at home?

Gemm Learning has had great success helping ELL students with reading in English.  Most of the time there is no cognitive glitch here, just a lack of familiarity with the sounds of English.  In fact, overseas, our primary program, Fast ForWord is used primarily to help children learn the sounds of English, as required for reading fluency.

Hearing English From Birth Matters

Language is the brain's operating system. Even minor interruptions, e.g., an ear infection, during the first three years of life when the brain is in a "set up phase" can cause an incompleteness in the language development that left untreated will be a burden for the child through life.

And so many children who were not born into English struggle at school. In many of these cases though there is no serious learning glitch.  There's just a problem in developing absolute comfort with English, called meta linguistics -- if you do not have complete dexterity with your language, for instance as a youngster you struggle to rhyme, then you are at risk to be an impaired listener, reader and thinker.

How Gemm Helps

Our intensive program, based around Fast ForWord software with tutor support, is an immersion in the phonemes and structures of English that did not come at birth and provides the foundation ESL/ELL and adopted children need for learning and life success.

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Fast ForWord For English Language Learners

The US Department of Education's What Works Clearinghouse has evaluated Scientific Learning Corporation's Fast ForWord Language product based on a study that met its highest evaluation criteria, and has concluded that the product is in the top tier of interventions aimed at English Language Learners (ELL).  This study mirrors other Fast ForWord empirical evidence.

The WWC, which is a central and trusted source of scientific evidence of what works in education, examined a rigorous study of kindergarten through fifth-grade English Language Learners and concluded that the Fast ForWord Language intervention had potentially positive effects on English language skills. The study showed that ELL students using the Fast ForWord Language intervention had statistically significant improvements in their English language development, with an improvement index of +31 on a scale of +/- 50.

To date, the designation of "potentially positive" is the strongest accolade given by the WWC in its reviews of interventions for English language learners. Five other ELL interventions were also examined; one matched the Fast ForWord Language rating for English language development, but its improvement index was much lower, at +11.

"Until they can develop age-appropriate English language skills, ELL students remain at a disadvantage for learning effectively in the classroom," added Paula Tallal, Ph.D. and co-director of the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience at Rutgers University. "It is so important for this population to have an intervention product scientifically proven to lead to rapid, reliable, efficient, and replicable improvement in their English language abilities. By certifying Fast ForWord Language as an effective intervention, the WWC will give educators a crucial tool for helping ELL students."

Your Next Steps

Gemm Learning offers Fast ForWord at home with remote tutoring or service in our NY and CT learning centers. The program is a one-time shot aiming to improve reading comprehension and fluency or language and learning skills.   Once the brain is appropriately wired for English these new abilities are exercised every day and so they endure and in fact lead to gains in higher level learning skills that were previously held back by weak language processing.