The Fast ForWord Reading Series

Fluency and age-appropriate comprehension

After completing at least one cognitive Fast ForWord program, most Gemm Learning students move to Fast ForWord Reading, a series of programs for struggling readers to fill in their unique reading and writing skill gaps.

While the Fast ForWord cognitive series aims to make reading easier, the Reading series aims to make it rewarding, by developing all of the skills needed for high level reading comprehension.

Overview

The Fast ForWord Reading programs, Levels 1-5, loosely correlate with grades. Reading Levels 1 and 2 build fluency, spelling and language structure, while Reading Levels 3 and 4 and 5 develop grammar, reading comprehension and writing skills, as well as building critical thinking and inferential skills. Reading Level 5 is appropriate for grades 8 through adult.

Program Descriptions

The Fast ForWord reading programs are for struggling readers of all ages. While some exercises are unique to one program, most exercise themes — such as spelling, vocabulary and comprehension — which help all aspects of reading, writing and learning are found in all programs.

Fast ForWord Reading Level 1

Reading Level 1 — for K to 2nd graders — works on early foundational skills such as vocabulary, phonemic awareness and uses simple sentence completion exercises to develop reading accuracy and comprehension. It also has a left to right eye tracking exercise with essential sight words to build capability in both areas. Each exercise is hosted by its own colorful character. The primary goal here is help the struggling reader develop reading fluency.
Fast ForWord Reading Level 1

Fast ForWord Reading Level 2

Reading Level 2 — for 2nd to 4th graders — builds on Reading Level 1. The focus is sight word fluency and the building blocks of reading comprehension.
Fast ForWord Reading Level 2

Fast ForWord Reading Level 3

While Reading Level 3 uses a 4th to 6th grade vocabulary, it is the starting point for most adolescents and adults. It takes the thinking-while-reading skill development up a notch with Twisted Pictures, an exercise requiring the student to choose one out of four similar sentences to describe a complicated picture. It also introduces an exercise that builds metalinguistics, a dexterity with language — rhyming, seeing the nuances — required for higher level thinking, often an under-developed skill in struggling readers.
Fast ForWord Reading Level 3

Each program in the series takes 4-8 weeks, depending on the student’s reading skills and session length; 30, 40 or 50 minutes. Young readers who are struggling to get started in reading will take longer, particularly in the early, cognitive skills phase of our program, before moving to the Fast ForWord Reading series.