High School Reading Programs

Over 6 million U.S. students in grades 8–12 are struggling readers. One in four adolescents cannot read well enough to identify the main idea in a passage or to understand informational text. ACT, a leading producer of college admission tests, reports that approximately 50% of high school graduates in 2010 did not have the reading skills they needed to succeed in college.

High school reading requires metacognitive reading comprehension, where a student is able to not only extract the main idea, but also self correct and think critically while reading. This is a challenging standard, and so it is not a surprise that so many high school readers are falling short.
Reading comprehension skills in more detail

This reading skills pyramid, which our high school reading programs follow, helps to define the problem. The ultimate skill is reading with metacognition, mastery of which cannot occur until skills lower in the pyramid are secure.

If your child is a slow reader, or failing to read with high school level comprehension, can you detect any clues that there is a skill weakness lower in the pyramid? Is decoding fluent? Is vocabulary knowledge sufficient to handle this year's reading requirements? Has reading comprehension been a challenge for a while, even before high school? Does your child resist reading, or does the absolute minimum?

These are all common symptoms of our students. Almost always, these symptoms are due to a weakness in reading fundamentals, that is impeding the development of higher level reading.

As the volume of studying and school work increases, your teenager will need to learn more from a text in less time to stay on track. To do this a child must be able to read fluently and with comprehension. Plus they must be able to process and analyze what they are reading, in any subject. Many children at high school do not yet have these skills.

Our goal is to help your pre-teen or teenager develop reading comprehension skills that include the ability to think critically while reading. Gemm will develop an individualized, one-time program that builds this level of reading competence by developing an effortless and fluent reading style, an understanding of the language and well developed abstract thinking and reasoning skills.

Reading Programs Overview
As with our middle school reading programs, our high school reading programs first target the underlying cause of any reading difficulty, by exercising cognitive skills -- processing, memory, attention and sequencing -- improving reading fluency by making decoding more automatic.
Reading fluency programs

At the same time, the high school student will also see exercises aimed at language familiarity -- syntax, language structure, vocabulary -- and language dexterity -- metalinguistics. These combined skills create the foundation for reading comprehension, with an emphasis of metacognitive strategies needed for ACT and SAT.
Reading comprehension programs

Our adaptive programs isolate and exercise reading skills at each level, developing a methodical, and comprehensive approach to reading, the goal being to help high school students prepare for the high stakes tests in 11th grade and for college reading.
Reading programs process steps

High School Reading Comprehension Standards

While high school students encounter escalating difficulty through the high school grades, the reading standard for each grade is determined not so much by new skill requirements -- as is the case in elementary and middle school -- but more by knowledge and vocabulary measures.

Indeed, the assumption is that on entering high school, a student will have the metacognitive reading comprehension skills required to handle the text in lessons, homework and in exams. The high stakes tests, the SAT in particular, require a strong vocabulary and the ability to read with metacognition.
Reading with metacognition

It's Not Too Late
If high school reading is a challenge for your child, it is not too late to do something about it. It is still possible to build a sound cognitive foundation, and develop the reading comprehension skills required to tackle challenging texts with greater independence, in time for the SAT or ACT.

Our Home Based Service

Our adaptive high school reading programs work through about 30 different exercises in five programs, looking for skill gaps in every level of the reading skills pyramid. A glitch at any level can impede the development of higher level skills. Closing that skill gap can lead to a significant improvement in reading comprehension skills in just a few months.
Reading skills helped

Our service is built around Fast ForWord reading software used in 40 countries around the world, backed by 55 patents and 250 research studies.
Fast ForWord research based reading programs

Students work on the software on their home computer, five days a week for 30 minutes a day, over 3-4 months. Data from each session upload to our server automatically, where progress and protocols are monitored and managed by certified Gemm Learning educators.
Service details

Motivating High School Students
Fast ForWord is an interactive program that requires student effort to work. For many high school students this is not a problem -- it's called ACT or SAT. If your child cannot achieve as he/she desires then the choice of schools may be limited. Our program works on reading comprehension, vocabulary, critical thinking and logic, the very skills tested in the SAT. Most of our students find they can read faster, with more accuracy and understanding, skills that can have a dramatic impact on their performance in the ACT and other high school reading tests.

We offer our high school reading programs in conjunction with online daily test questions, as a comprehensive ACT or SAT test prep approach. If your child is in an earlier high school grade, we would recommend action on our reading programs as soon as your student is motivated to act. The metacognitive reading comprehension abilities our programs are only enhanced if your child has time to practice them by doing a lot of reading ahead of the test.
ACT and SAT test prep program

Our programs can have a profound quality of life impact on your high school child -- easier reading, better grades, less time on homework, improved confidence and of course, much improved performance in the high stakes college tests. These gains can start to emerge in just a few weeks, when your child abides by our protocols. If you think your child needs help, and is motivated to do better, call to find out if your child is a candidate for our program. Free consults are available 9AM to 6PM EST Monday to Friday, or complete this request for a consult outside these times.
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