Accelerate Reading & Learning With Fast ForWord Software

The neuroscience-based Fast ForWord reading program rewires and strengthens essential cognitive – memory, attention, processing and sequencing – and reading skills. While it is primarily a reading program, Fast ForWord is used to help a range of language and learning skills.

Just as physical fitness improves with exercise, brain function will respond to training. the Fast ForWord program taps into this opportunity to help children at all academic levels read and learn with confidence.

  • Treats the underlying difficulties, not the symptoms
  • Individualized for each student
  • Over 2 million students in 42 countries have used Fast ForWord

MindSpark Learning provides these solutions at home with remote oversight.

Adaptive Exercises For All Learners

Fast ForWord starts by exercising foundational language and cognitive skills, such as working memory, phonological processing, attention and sequencing. It uses adaptive exercises that add speed and complexity at the student’s own pace.

After 1-3 months, most students move to the reading phase, working on reading skills such as fluency in decoding, spelling, vocabulary and reading comprehension.

Individualized Protocols

Each Fast ForWord program (there are 10 in total) has 5-7 games, each of which aims at one or more cognitive, language and/or reading skill. MindSpark Learning creates individualized protocols drawing from this list of exercises according to your child’s needs and goals.

In addition, we account for your child’s schedule and availability in our Fast ForWord at home design. We can go with a more intensive  program for quicker results or a more drawn out program — 30 or 50 minutes a day, 3-5 days a week. Whatever works for you and your family. Finally, the software is now available on the iPad® making it even easier to access from anywhere, any time.

Neuroscience-Based Software

Fast ForWord taps into neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain to change, just like physical muscle. Its exercises ask students to make hundreds of increasingly complex decisions in quick succession. This creates a ladder to higher function, new neural connections and consequently, new learning abilities that transfer into better reading and learning.

The Fast ForWord program series incorporates key neuroscience principles. One feature is shaping, stimulating higher function through more challenging tasks in tiny incremental steps, like physical training. Another important element is simultaneous activity, where skills are trained together in a way that carries over into daily life where learning is integrated. Consequently, the gains endure.

30+ Years of Research

Fast ForWord software incorporates cognitive research, neuroscience, linguistics and natural learning science. By diving into the cognitive skills required for reading, the Fast ForWord founders identified abnormal temporal processing and language learning impairments common in struggling readers. Therefore, they postulated that by improving phonological awareness through adaptive exercises they could improve reading and learning.

Four highly regarded neuroscientists led this research over a 30 year period. They were Dr. Michael Merzenich and Bill Jenkins at the University of California, San Francisco, and Paula Tallal and Steven Miller at Rutgers University. After publishing their initial findings in Science, the scientists persuaded several world-renowned universities to contribute and review data in randomized controlled studies. These and other studies validate the premise that language processing skills are the key to better learning and reading efficiency.

Nevertheless, the vast majority of studies show gains of 1-2 years in 3-4 months.

Who Fast ForWord Helps

The software helps almost all children with reading difficulties. This is because delays in language processing, the first target of the Fast ForWord program, are the primary source of reading difficulties. It is also arguably the most popular software in the world for treating auditory processing disorder.

Furthermore, because of its ability to access deep-seated cognitive and language delays, it can be an effective choice for a range of other learning issues, including dyslexia, inattentive ADD and working memory dysfunction.

Because the Fast ForWord reading program targets learning efficiency, it helps study and test taking skills. Additionally, it can improve symptoms associated with autism, Asperger syndrome and traumatic brain injury.

Find Out If We Can Help You or Your Child

To find out if your child is a candidate for our program, call one of our teachers for a free consult at (904) 514-2703