The brain is the only organ that takes until early adulthood to fully mature and develop. A preschooler goes through tremendous brain development as they grow, as any parent can attest to.

While many children experience cognitive skill development through natural stimulation from daily conversation and observation, some do not. For these children, added stimulation from brain training can have a profound impact, preparing them for the demands later in life. This is because early learning for children is mainly about foundations -- phonics for reading, focus for learning, processing for listening -- upon which higher level thinking and reasoning skills will be built.

All preschoolers should be developing these skills:

Concepts of reading
Motor skills
Identifying shapes
Identifying colors
Identify numbers and counting
Position and directions
Relative size of things
Talking and listening
Social skills
Hand-eye coordination

Early Learning Priority: Prevention vs. Treatment
Progress in developing these skills will vary greatly from one child to the next. Even simple everyday activities can challenge a preschooler’s mental skills if there are any delays in cognitive skill development. Over time small gaps grow. If small learning difficulties in early childhood are not fixed, they can persist, and get worse. Prevention through early intervention is much easier than later treatment.

Preschool experiences lay a cognitive and developmental foundation that result in improved developmental and academic outcomes later on. While home environment, teachers, family and peers all play a role, these positive experience are in large part dictated by your child's listening and learning skills.

Fast ForWord Basics and Reading Readiness

Fast ForWord is a suite of learning programs that start with Fast ForWord Language Basics and Reading Readiness which provide early learning for preschool children, helping them develop critical language and cognitive skills. The Fast ForWord pre-school suite is a great way to get children ready for reading and to build the listening and attention skills required for the classroom.

Preschool children start with Fast ForWord Language Basics and then move to either Fast ForWord Language v2 or to Fast ForWord Reading Readiness.

Fast ForWord Language Basics
Fast ForWord Language Basics is an excellent tool for early cognitive and literacy development. It is targeted to young children, four to seven years old, and uses fun activities to develop the basic skills necessary for language and reading development.

As a precursor to our Fast ForWord Language program it works on processing skills and computer skills. Through the use of patented technology this program improves sound sequencing skills, fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, pattern recognition, color and shape identification, and basic computer skills.

Fast ForWord Reading Readiness
Fast ForWord Reading Readiness builds pre-reading skills, with a focus on letter recognition and naming, phonological awareness, and letter-sound associations. Fast ForWord Reading Readiness software is designed for early literacy development, helping students who are having trouble moving from the spoken word to the written word.

To build a bridge to reading, Fast ForWord Reading Readiness develops critical brain processing efficiency in four key areas:

Builds memory by developing the ability to hold a spoken word in working memory while retrieving picture-concept associations.

Improves attention by developing the ability to focus on tasks and ignore distractions.

Develops processing of images and sounds quickly enough to discriminate between their differences.

Develops sequencing by using positional clues to identify missing letters.

Fast ForWord Language Basics starts work on cognitive skills required for reading and language processing. To see how our early learning program helps specific reading difficulties and symptoms, go to this page:
More on our early reading programs