Most Gemm students start with the cognitive remapping program, Fast ForWord Language v2 or Literacy -- demos here -- and then move onto the Fast ForWord Reading series.

The Fast ForWord Reading series has five discrete programs which each take 4-8 weeks, starting with early reading fundamentals, then fluency, reading comprehension, and finally, high level reasoning and metacognitive skills.

Reading 1&2: spelling, reading fluency

Fast ForWord Reading 1 works on early reading skills such as vocabulary, spelling fundamentals, decoding fluency, sight words and reading accuracy in sentence comprehension. Children work through the material at their own pace. Reading 2 maps the exercises in Reading 1, with more complexity.

By the end of Reading 2 we expect most students to have good reading fundamentals and be well on the way to reading fluency.

Reading 3: reading comprehension

Fast ForWord Reading 3 focuses on reading accuracy and comprehension, while continuing to work on fundamentals such as grammar and spelling.

Twisted Pictures in one of three exercises that work on critical reading skills, reading accuracy and comprehension. Hog Hat Zone is a challenging sentence completion exercise that uses extracts from the classics to build language knowledge, and comprehension skills. Book Monkeys takes this a step further with paragraph comprehension work.

The remaining exercises build language and vocabulary skills. Canine Crew introduces the idea of metalinguistics, comfort with language and the ability to play with the sounds. Scrap Cat helps students learn to categorize as a way to build an expansive vocabulary. Chicken Dog works on spelling rules -- spelling is a critical decoding skill.

Reading 5: higher level critical reading

Reading 5 takes reading skills to their limits. It works on vocabulary, syntax and builds the high level critical thinking, abstract reasoning and reading comprehension skills needed for high school and high stakes test success. It helps develop reading comprehension with metacognition.

Gator Jam works on vocabulary and categorization at a sophisticated language level. Wood Works develops the metalinguistics theme further. Comfort with language is a key to decoding automaticity, which this exercise develops.

The three reading comprehension exercises have separate thrusts: Toad Loader works on critical reading, inferential thinking and reading accuracy. Lana's Lane tackles paragraph comprehension and reasoning, while Quack Splash works on reading comprehension, abstract reasoning and critical thinking. Most adults cannot complete Quack Splash.

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