Fast ForWord123 accelerates learning and reading for all students
The programs help struggling learners, students doing well, and even gifted students reach their potential

 

Fast ForWord123 is proven to help with:

Ever tried to listen to something important on the radio when it’s not on the station? That’s what Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) is like.

It’s what our brains do with what our ears hear.

Children with APD find it hard to distinguish speech sounds when there is background noise. They find it difficult to focus, they get frustrated, their schoolwork suffers and they get tired from trying to listen.

APD is estimated to affect around 5% of the population.

How can Fast ForWord help?

The good news is brains can be “rewired”! 

People with APD can be helped by the Fast ForWord program. Its digitally 'stretched' sounds give the brain more time to process speech sounds.  As the student's auditory processing ability improves, Fast ForWord progressively speeds up the sounds to the pace of natural speech.

Learn more about Auditory Processing Disorder here:

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Dyslexia is the most common learning disability. Most children with dyslexia have to work much harder than others to learn to read and spell.

Dyslexia and reading struggles have a more far-reaching effect than many people realise. Adults feel shame at not being able to do what for everyone else seems so easy. Children can lose confidence and can be bullied.

Dyslexia is estimated to affect some 10% of the population.

How can Fast ForWord help?

The good news is dyslexic brains can be “rewired”! 

Fast ForWord can rewire brains. It is designed to help children with dyslexia and reading struggles to understand rapidly changing sounds that are the building blocks of language.

And reading skills are built on strong language skills.

What makes it so effective for dyslexia is that it uses intensive, adaptive exercises to train and improve the most foundational processing weaknesses that are at the root of dyslexia.

Learn more about Dyslexia here:

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Did you know that you aren’t programmed to learn to read?

Reading is a relatively recent invention. Our brains are programmed for speaking and listening but we have to be taught how to read and write. It is one of the most complex skills we can learn in our lifetime. We take reading for granted, and yet many students struggle with mastering it.

How can Fast ForWord help?

Scientists have developed a way your child can improve their reading brain.

They do this by focusing on the most common areas of weakness, memory attention, auditory processing, visual processing and sequencing. Problems in these areas lead to difficulty learning to read.

The program identifies your child's individual weaknesses and continuously adjusts to them, to keep them challenged.

Your child can make gains of up to 1-2 years in reading competency and these gains are maintained without additional training.

Learn more about Reading Difficulties here:

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Autism Spectrum Disorders are a group of Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD). These include classical Autism, Asperger’s and PDD-NOS (not otherwise specified), this can also be known as Atypical Autism.

ASD is a very complex disorder and is not just one identifiable condition. It differs from person to person, from brain to brain.

Children with ASD need to develop skills in their sensory system (sight, touch, taste and hearing). They require particular support with their auditory (hearing) sensory skills. Children with autism have difficulty processing sounds, (an auditory processing disorder), and this is a core component of their attention, memory and language difficulties.

How does Fast ForWord help?

The Fast ForWord programs can be an integral part of intervention and development for children with Autism, as they develop the auditory processing skills that are a core component of language difficulties. This can improve a child’s communication, social interaction and the ability to make friends.

Fast ForWord can help improve your child’s:

  • Oral language skills
  • Auditory processing
  • Attention
  • Memory
  • Social skills

Learn more about ASD here:

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Many parents struggle to find the best way to help their learning delayed child or a child whose language skills are delayed. When children struggle to learn, they can become very frustrated, emotionally sensitive, and lose interest in their school work.

Behavioural problems, at home or at school, may also be caused by unidentified language or learning difficulties. When children struggle to learn, they may express their frustration by behaving badly or venting their feelings.

A child or adult suffering from a learning difficulty or disability may have problems in understanding, remembering and responding to new information. They may also have difficulty listening, speaking, reading, writing, paying attention and problem solving.

How can Fast ForWord help?

Fast ForWord helps build stronger and more efficient neural networks in the brain – improving memory, attention and processing and making classroom learning easier.

Parents and teachers often report their improved behaviour and better social skills after completing LearnFast programs, as they strengthen the underlying processing skills required to be a successful learner.

Learning more about Language and Learning Delay

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When we learn a second language our brains have to process the sounds of the new language. If English is not your child’s first language, their brain will have to be trained to recognise the sounds in English words. 

He or she will learn to recognise English sounds by hearing English spoken at school, in shops and so on, and by teachers. Your child can speed up this process and “wire” the English sounds into their brain more strongly with Fast ForWord

How does Fast ForWord help?

Fast ForWord fine tunes the brain to the sounds and grammar of English. This strengthens your child’s ability to learn English.

Free resources on English Language Learners

Blogs on English Language Learning

 

Why do ESLs struggle with reading?

Students with limited or no English speaker proficiency need instruction in recognising and distinguishing the sounds of English as compared or contrasted with sounds in their native language.

Instruction for ESLs in oral language knowledge, skills, and abilities must be explicit, intensive, and extensive.

Oral proficiency in English (including oral vocabulary, grammar, and listening comprehension) is critical for ESLs to develop proficiency in text-level English reading comprehension.

Sounds of the world’s languages differ greatly, e.g., English has 44 phonemes and Spanish has 21. By 6 months old, your students’ brains are wiring to sounds of a language other than English. Our software uniquely targets the phonemes of English to build the foundational skills required for all literacy. With brains “wired” for English, listening comprehension and all language development happens faster and easier.

Do ESLs need to be able to read to use this program?

No. Students do no need to read yet in either their native or second language. There are exercises that have no written letters, making it appropriate for pre-readers and readers alike.

What about special needs students who are second language learners?

The Build English Fast technology has been studied extensively with students with special needs and now has been found to extraordinarily effective with ESL students. For a child to be appropriate, he/she simply needs to have at least the language skills of a three-year-old in the native language and be able to use a computer or iPad with headphones.

Does your child have an attention Problem?

Some attention problems are very obvious. You can see from your child’s behaviours that they certainly struggle with attention. However, there are some children who might seem to be able to concentrate for long periods on things that interest them, but can still have ADHD.

For example, even if your child can focus for extended periods of time doing Lego or drawing, that doesn’t mean they are being naughty when they have difficulty attending in the classroom, and focusing on learning tasks. If this is your child, he or she may have an attention difficulty.

Two Types of Attention Disorder

There are two distinct types of Attention Deficit Disorder. In both, the main symptom is difficulty sustaining attention, particularly for learning tasks.

The two types are known as:

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

This is most commonly recognised type of ADHD. If your child has this type, they will have a short attention span, distractibility and impulsivity. Some of these children are also hyperactive.

Attention Deficit Disorder (Predominately Inattentive Presentation)

If teachers describe your child as a “daydreamer”, they may have this type of Attention Deficit Disorder. These children are not impulsive or hyperactive but they do have difficulty keeping up their attention for learning and can be easily distracted.

Attention, Executive Function & Learning Difficulties

Children with ADHD also have difficulty with executive function. The executive functions occur in our brains and include planning, organisation and “working memory”.

This means they have particular difficulty planning and organising their daily schedule, and keeping track of their belongings. This also impacts on their ability to plan and organise written language tasks such as writing stories and composing essays.

This means they have difficulty planning and organising their daily schedule, and keeping track of their belongings. This also impacts on their ability to plan and organise written language tasks such as writing stories and composing essays.

Children with ADHD often have learning difficulties, not because they aren’t bright, but because it is very hard for them to learn if they can’t pay attention.

How Can Fast ForWord Help?

FFW can help because it challenges the child to attend longer and then rewards that behaviour.

Free resources on Attention issues

Blogs on Attention issues

Just about everyone has had the experience of going shopping with a small list of purchases in their mind, only to forget one of them upon arriving at the store. Similarly, we all have left one room to retrieve something from another room, forgetting what we are after before we have even arrived. The ability to hold information in mind for a few minutes to a few hours is called working memory. 

Working memory is very important for all kinds of learning. Working memory is where we need to hold information in our mind and do something with that information.

For example in mental arithmetic, in understanding what we read, and many other learning tasks, the child has to listen to or read the information, hold it in their mind and do something with that remembered information – to come up with an answer or understanding of the information.

How can Fast ForWord help?

Fortunately the brain is a malleable structure and cognitive skills like working memory can be improved by strengthening key learning pathways in the brain. This is what Fast ForWord does.

Learn more about Working Memory here

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14 ways to improve working memory

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The most amazing and inspiring discovery by neuroscientists in the last three decades is that it is never too late to improve your brain.

Many adults struggle daily with their careers and personal lives due to poor reading, language and listening abilities. 

Which of these do you identify with (it may be more than one)?

  • Many adults struggle daily with their careers and personal lives due to poor reading, writing, listening and speaking abilities;
  • English is not your first language, and you'd like to be better;
  • Some adults find it a challenge to listen in noisy environments – it can be hard to follow conversations;
  • Some adults fear or are embarrassed to read aloud;
  • Did you lack interest in school and learning now seems like quite a challenge?
  • Have you been impacted by a stroke or a brain injury?
  • Have you a diagnosis of, or suspect dyslexia or auditory processing difficulties or attention difficulties?
  • Many of us want to keep improving our minds and maintain possibly the best defence against the fearful ravages of age that impact that mental exchange rate – “when I am old, I hope the kids can say that I am better than 90 cents in the dollar”.
  • Would you like to get your brain more powerfully activated for everyday at work?

Fast ForWord can help

Our programs have been helping learners succeed for
over 20 years, in over 50 countries

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Over 3,000,000 students have used Fast ForWord
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More than 15,000 schools have used Fast ForWord
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250,000 educators have implemented Fast ForWord