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Fast ForWord (4)

250 Research Studies Published on Fast ForWord & Reading Assistant


How do you usually make decisions when you are thinking about an important purchase such as a car or a large household item like a refrigerator or washing machine?

Do you base your decisions on:

  1. How you feel (“I really like it”)?
  2. What others say about it?
  3. Comparisons of facts and data (fuel consumption, energy efficiency, reports by independent consumer organisations)?
  4. A combination of all of these.

Decisions about educational software

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Double " teaching as usual" reading gain - 146 NSW primary students

Here is how a primary school achieved double the reading gain one would normally expect.

Picture this:  Following a half day professional development session, "Glasses for the Ears" where the teachers discovered how their students could become better learners by using neuroscience, students of all abilities from Grades 2 to 6 were enrolled in the Fast ForWord neuroscience-based program.

The teachers who volunteered to implement the program received more detailed ongoing training and support.

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3 Famous Neuroscientists: How Brain Plasticity Helps Human Potential

“The science of neuroplasticity is slowly but surely transforming how we think about ourselves and our brains, and how we can build a stronger brain that provides us with a better life,” said Dr Michael Merzenich.

He was speaking in a roundtable discussion with Professors Eve Marder and Carla Shatz following the trio’s receipt of the $1million 2016 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience.

The three scientists discussed how their work disrupted a central dogma of neuroscience and how it offers the promise of plasticity-based treatments for people who are struggling to learn, have brain damage or who have brains at risk of mental illness or dementia.

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Fast ForWord Neuroscience Programs a Success at Covenant College

“I’ve too many good results here with a range of children to not give all the kids an opportunity to do it”.

That's how Bruce Horman, Head of Junior School at Covenant College explained why he decided to have all children in Grade Three participate in the neuroscience-based Fast ForWord program in 2015.

Covenant College is a K -12 school with 540 students in Geelong, Victoria.

For the previous three years Covenant College had focussed the program on students from various grades who were presenting with a range of learning difficulties. They also included some students who were achieving in the mid range of their cohort, but had potential to do better.

Bruce commented, “I've seen that bright kids also benefit from Fast ForWord. It's not just for those kids who are really struggling”.

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How Fast ForWord Helped Finn: Autism, Language & Reading Improvements

Watching your child grow up is exciting and wondrous. You marvel at what they pick up and how they develop.

For Kim Rackemann and her husband, the journey with their son Finn wasn’t quite so straightforward. Finn wasn’t really hitting the usual milestones. He was found to be on the Autism Spectrum, and the main indicator was his language delay.

Despite some scepticism, Finn started the Fast ForWord program, and in what seemed to be a short space of time, the improvements started. I spoke to Kim on The Learning Capacity Podcast where she shared Finn’s story.

Listen to the podcast.

 

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How Fast ForWord Helped Heal and Restore a Life: Ester’s Story

This is a story that defies the odds. It involves years of illness, crushing diagnoses by doctors, and miraculous recovery. It demonstrates how the brain really can change itself.

And it also involves Fast ForWord, a neuroscience based program used for both remedial learning, and learning enhancement. In a special episode of the Learning Capacity Podcast, I spoke to a mother about her daughter’s journey through illness to recovery. 

Given the nature of the details involved, I refer to my guest only as Esther, which is her real name, and her children. 

Listen to the podcast.

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Dawson Now Loves to Read, Thanks to 6 Weeks of Fast ForWord

This is a personal story. It’s about my grandson Dawson.

He’s in grade 4 at school. Dawson is a bright boy. Intelligence testing has put him in the 90th percentile in overall cognitive ability. But his language skills were tested as relatively weak.

He had no trouble learning to read, and he was able to understand what he read. But he wasn’t a big reader.  He would read reluctantly and did not seem to get a lot of enjoyment from it.

Earlier this year his teacher reported that Dawson was reading at a level between year 3 and year 4.

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Educational Neuroscience Helps Students: Special Needs to Mainstream

Peter Carabi, vice president of Global Business Development for Scientific Learning has been watching how educational neuroscience is changing learning for students around the world.

He sees how this relativey new brain science, which is the foundation for the Fast ForWord brain training, language and reading programs, opens new opportunities for students regardless of their country or ability.

Peter recorded an interview with the Learning Capacity Podcast in which he discussed English language learning and educational neuroscience.

This blog is a transcript of his comments about the latter.

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Peter Carabi: English Language Learning with Fast ForWord

Language and reading are universal skills required by everyone across the world. And with English being such a dominant language, there are an increasing number of people looking for ways to improve their English literacy.

Peter Carabi, vice president of Global Business Development for Scientific Learning is in the privileged position of witnessing the effects of the Fast ForWord programs as they help people around the world with their language skills. He sees how this opens new opportunities for them and often completely changes the trajectory of young peoples’ lives.

The programs are based on neuroscience, and the concept that the brain is not fixed, but plastic, and has the capability to change itself. Peter describes it as one of the things that can give us all hope.

Colin Klupiec caught up with Peter at the biannual LearnFast summit in January 2016, on a sunny day in Manly on Sydney Harbour and recorded an interview for the Learning Capacity Podcast. Peter discussed English language learning and educational neuroscience.

Listen to the podcast.

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