Fast ForWord For Families At Home

Gemm Learning or a Clinician?

There are no diagnostic decisions to be made, or remedial therapies required, when managing Fast ForWord for families at home. The software does the heavy lifting, and so, when choosing a provider, think mainly about your child's compliance. Ask yourself, which provider is best placed to help you keep your child on track every day and engaged?

While you do need oversight from a professional who has experience with children in a learning environment -- our program managers are teachers -- it's a personal trainer role, where compliance translates into outcomes. To that end, we have a comprehensive approach to the at home experience.
Our online learning center service

Here's our approach:

• Monitor. While clinicians wear different hats throughout a day, Fast ForWord at home is all we do. We monitor every student, every day. If there is an issue, we react immediately, seven days a week.

• Encourage. Gemm Learning was started to fill this important need. We have an online rewards site, Gemm City, to motivate children, we mail laminated certificates, and we use teacher-student pep talks and joint sessions -- our teachers know how to get the best out of your child.
  
  Gemm students average 85-90% compliance, far above the national Fast ForWord average. Our inspirational approach works, and we have outcomes to match.

• Intervene. Even with an adaptive program, students can get stuck. As the largest provider of Fast ForWord in North America, we can draw on years of experience to provide coaching tips, we tweak protocols, and/or we conduct one-on-one sessions where we log into the student's computer and get on the phone for a session. One way or another, we get students back on track!

A Fast ForWord Personal Trainer
An orthopedic surgeon does not oversee home exercises after surgery. Instead, to help you stay on track, you would find a personal trainer or physical therapist. That is our role, the personal trainer that is there every day, making sure your child does the exercises correctly and regularly, to get the most out of this amazing program.

How Our Service Differs

Gemm Learning runs Fast ForWord at home like a virtual learning center. We were founded on the idea that Fast ForWord could be a convenient, easy to use intervention for home use, but that this approach required adjustments to the existing service offered by clinicians, whose strength and focus, naturally, is in clinic.

After six years of honing our at home student experience, we believe our Fast ForWord service model is now almost unrecognizable compared to the clinician alternative:

• Our Gemm City rewards website helps keep your child motivated

• Extended hours of personalized support. We answer the phones (and your emails) because serving families at home is all we do

• Our parent resources website, My Gemm, uniquely promotes ease of use

• We are affordable, with flexible payment options

Our whole-family approach has opened up a new world for parents intrigued by Fast ForWord, but not able to make the center visits and/or desiring regular access to a certified educator as part of their child's reading or learning intervention.

Gemm City Motivates Students

Outcomes depend on student compliance. We have developed a unique virtual rewards site at Gemm City (www.gemmcity.com) where our students have the ability to cash in rewards for their effort -- gift certificates, sweepstakes -- a free daily spin!, virtual rooms or merchandise sent by mail. We also send by mail (addressed to your child) laminated Completion Certificates at important milestones.
Gemm City rewards website

Gemm Learning Is A Service Organization -- We Are Responsive

This is what we do all day long, serve families doing Fast ForWord at home. We answer the phones, we respond to emails. This responsiveness is a large part of our 96.8% client satisfaction rate. You will see the difference right at the outset -- we will provide remote computer assistance to help with the software set up if needed. Both the high-touch service and the technology of this start is far beyond clinician service.

In addition to reviewing your child's work as it is uploaded, we will pick up the phone to check in with you regularly. Also, if the phone rings at Gemm Learning we answer it. If you send an email we reply right away. This upgrade in service was a founding principle for Gemm Learning and a big part of what helps us stand out among Fast ForWord providers.

Emphasis on Convenience and Ease of Use

Running Fast ForWord at home is a commitment, and at times it will be challenging. However, there are aggravations you should not have to endure, and Gemm Learning has worked hard to eliminate these issues, big and small.

• My Gemm. We are the only Fast ForWord provider in the North America that has an online parent resources website, called My Gemm (wwww.mygemm.com). My Gemm has a series of handy help videos on all aspects of the program, points tracking sheets, manuals, scientific research, service tips, reading lists, and all kinds of other resources developed to support and enhance the parent experience.


• Remote sessions. If there are glitches, we have the remote service technology and resources to help. If needed, we can hop onto your computer to help with a software issue, or to help your child through a session.

Better Participation For Better Outcomes

Because of our student incentives and our service level, Gemm student compliance (attendance and effort) is well above the national average for Fast ForWord students, and above that achieved in the research studies. There is a strong correlation between student effort and outcomes.
Fast ForWord research

Gemm Is Flexible and Affordable

For a traditional 4-6 month program, Gemm is often thousands of dollars cheaper than most clinicians, with all the consults and testing along the way -- these add-on expenses add up. At Gemm Learning, everything is included. There are no added fees for the regular assessments, student prizes, etc.

Since this is how we make a living, our service is priced to be affordable. By contrast, Fast ForWord is a minor part of most clinician practices and so their pricing can be and most often is higher. In addition, as a specialist provider, Gemm has efficiencies such as lower software costs versus most clinicians, and while we use teaching professionals to manage participants at home our staff charge-out rate is lower.
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When to Choose a Clinician

Note that we are not always the best Fast ForWord choice. If your child does not do well at home, we will often recommend a local college student or high school senior to come and sit with him or her during sessions. If this option is not available, a local clinician may indeed be a better option.

Also, if your child has an unusual diagnosis, and there are doubts if Fast ForWord is a good choice, a clinician may be better placed to make that determination a few weeks into the program -- we have a two-week risk free start process for these situations, but we are educators not medical professionals, and sometimes these clinical calls are not appropriate for us to make. In fact, this is why Gemm Learning actually administers Fast ForWord for some students where a clinician is copied on progress.