Elementary Reading Programs

Software to accelerate fluency & comprehension

Do any of these symptoms apply to your elementary school child?

• Struggles to read with fluency
• Resists reading
• Skips or substitutes words when reading
• Reading comprehension difficulties

Our remedial reading programs for elementary age children help these common issues by targeting the cause of the problem and establishing a foundation for future reading success.

Comprehensive Approach To Reading

Our elementary school reading programs work on all aspects of reading, in an individualized sequence, the ultimate goal being proficient reading comprehension.

Phonics and Phonemic Awareness
Many younger elementary children do not have the auditory processing skills required to hear the sounds inside words. This makes it very difficult to learn to sound words out. Gemm Learning uses Fast ForWord software to build processing speed and accuracy, one step earlier than phonics reading programs, to help students more clearly hear phonemes, the tiny sounds inside words required for reading.
Cognitive skills training

Reading Fluency
If decoding is not automatic, it draws on brain power that is required for comprehension. Reading fluency is a predictor of future reading comprehension for elementary students, because, like comprehension, reading fluency — at natural language speed with prosody, inflection — requires automatic decoding. Gemm builds reading fluency by first building the cognitive foundation, and then developing the vocabulary, language structure, spelling and other skills for language familiarity, both spoken and in text.

Reading Comprehension 
By 4th grade in elementary school, literal reading comprehension is a required skill that only gets more challenging in 5th grade and beyond. Our elementary reading programs gradually introduce reading comprehension skills, first in simple categorization and sentence completion exercises, escalating to more complex text to picture matching and paragraph completion exercises later on.
Improving elementary reading comprehension

Spelling and Vocabulary
Our remedial reading programs have exercises that boost spelling and vocabulary skills. Reading fluency requires strong spelling skills — spelling patterns are how we convert all words into sight words. Reading comprehension requires strong vocabulary knowledge.
Spelling programs

Expected Results

The first changes are typically in confidence, where students start to recognize that words are made up of sounds and they can hear those sounds. This confidence translates into more willingness to sound out unfamiliar words while reading.

Next come indications of improved fluency, more willingness to read independently, and most often, clear signs that reading comprehension is starting to improve. In the 1-2 years after our program, your child should continue to see improvements in reading comprehension and grades, an easier time with homework, and improved focus.