Programs To Improve Reading Skills

Developing Reading Skills In Sequence

There are 43 different learning and reading skills, all of which need to function at natural language speed for efficient reading. While there are long lists of reading warning signs, a few common reading problems or behaviors point to a reading skills deficit that needs correcting.
Reading problems helped by our program

To improve reading to the level required to handle high school and college reading assignments and exams, reading skills are best developed in sequence, as shown in the pyramid. Developing proficient reading requires improving reading skills at each lower level to mastery.

Gemm Learning uses this sequential approach. Our Fast ForWord software is a comprehensive series of reading programs, that uses neuroscience and cognitive research principles to rewire learning. There are eleven programs in all, containing 70 different, adaptive exercises.
Research based reading programs in detail

The road to the top of the pyramid, metacognitive reading comprehension has ample opportunity for a glitch to interrupt progress, difficulty with one or more reading skill. Fast ForWord is adaptive, meaning that while your child will see exercises covering all aspects of reading, progress through the sections that hone reading skills he/she already possesses will be quick. Students spend the vast majority of their time on their unique reading skill gaps.

Cognitive Skills
About a quarter of kindergarten age children go to school and just read. They can do this because they were born with a secure cognitive foundation. They learn the language -- vocabulary, structure and phonetics -- just by listening, and then transition to reading with ease. Our reading skills program exercises these important skills, aiming to turn our students into these natural readers.
Cognitive skills training

Phonological Awareness
Reading and listening comprehension require complete automaticity in decoding and in listening. To the extent that a reader needs to concentrate on breaking down the words being read, reading comprehension is compromised. The brain can learn to decode automatically, but this requires complete language dexterity, i.e., sound phonological awareness.
Phonological awareness and reading

Spelling
Spelling is more critical in improving reading skills than most parents recognize. Eventually every word becomes a sight word, mapped by the brain through recognition of spelling patterns. If spelling skills are inadequate, high level reading comprehension will be a challenge. Fast ForWord improves spelling, first by building a phonetic foundation, then spelling rules, and finally by tackling spelling exceptions.
Programs to help spelling

Reading Fluency
Reading fluency is all about automaticity: the ability to push decoding down into the subconscious, to make it effortless. If a child needs to concentrate to decode, then reading comprehension is compromised. In addition, it forces the brain to multitask -- decode and derive meaning -- which is exhausting and not likely to be enjoyable. Your child cannot improve reading comprehension without improving fluency. Reading fluency requires sound phonological awareness, good eye tracking, sight work knowledge, and language structure dexterity.
Improving reading fluency

Reading Comprehension
Making sense of the text, understanding the main ideas, connecting the text to prior knowledge, are all part of reading comprehension. These critical reading skills and strategies require automatic decoding, an understanding of language and language structure, as well as the ability to think while reading. This is a learned skill, exercised thoroughly in each phase of our program.
Improving reading comprehension

Critical Reading With Metacognition
Good readers use sophisticated, metacognitive strategies. That is, they think critically about their own understanding as they go. All students need to improve reading to this high level where a reader is aware of his own cognitive experience is the difference between a good and excellent reader, an average or great ACT or SAT score.
Reading metacognition

Vocabulary & Language Structure
Most struggling readers do not have language mastery, in general because they need to concentrate while listening and reading has detracted from their ability over time to absorb and observe how language is structured and used.

Weak auditory processing skills can also hamper vocabulary -- longer words, or words with difficult to hear blends, tend not to be heard clearly enough to be used confidently. Our reading skills software assumes there will be vocabulary, grammar and sentence syntax gaps that need to be exercised, and closed.
Language structure and syntax program

Focus While Reading
Sound reading comprehension and good reading stamina require focused attention. This is an under-developed reading skill when decoding is a challenge. Our learning programs have several exercises that improve reading by building attention skills.
Programs to build attention skills while reading