Neuron Learning

Brain Based Learning - Lecture on Language and the Reading Puzzle

Brain Based Learning - Language and the Reading Puzzle: - Some practical ways to help readers Presented by Prof. Virginia Mann Irish Learning Support Association www.ilsa.ie Date: Friday 11th April 2008 - Time: 12:30pm to 2.30pm Place: Drumcondra Education Centre Admission: free RSVP: john@neuron.ie Download virginia_mann_ilsa_080411_a.pdf

The Reading Brain

Interesting Article in Scientific American magazine about reading, cognitive skill development and brain plasticity.

The article talks about the need for specific instruction on phonemic awareness for students who have difficulty reading. It goes on to emphasise orthographic, phonological, semantic, morphological, and syntactic knowledge necessary for fluent reading in an integrated, systematic, and fun fashion. Finally they identify semantic development, (more about this key function later in the blog).

We certainly "tick all the boxes" in their reading strategy using Fast ForWord.

Here is an extract..
.......The story of reading's development is a complex tale of equal parts human invention and neural plasticity. The human mind created reading, but that skill could only come about because of the brain's unique capacity to form new circuits. Scientists have long known that reading depends on an intricate set of neural circuits in the brain, but the exact operation of these circuits remains an area of ongoing investigation. Now, a study  by cognitive neuroscientists Laurent Cohen, Stanislas Deaene and their colleagues in the March 1st issue of the journal Neuroimage gives us some new insights into the reading brain.

Click here for the full article

Video Kenmare Community School

A number of people asked to get a copy of the video.

Here is a version that you can download to your own pc and play on your Realplayer or Microsoft or other player. Download pobal08024.mpg

This video can be found below in an earlier posting.

Also it can be accessed on Youtube

On the RTE website

I hope you enjoy it.

John

Research Update

Interesting to see a new study from the National Institute of Health in the United States, children who have unusual difficulty understanding and using language made significant, long-term gains in their language abilities after using Fast ForWord® software intervention. About 74 percent of children using the Fast ForWord Language programme made large improvements on language measures - and showed even greater improvement six months later.

The Fast ForWord Language software was one of four intervention strategies examined in the study, led by Ronald B. Gillam, Ph.D., of Utah State University. The Fast ForWord Language series builds foundational reading and language skills while improving memory, attention and processing rates so schools can move elementary special needs and English language learners toward grade level reading skills.

"It is clear that a large majority of the children in our study who received treatment with Fast ForWord Language showed substantial improvements, reversing a long-time trend," said Dr. Gillam.  "The results of longitudinal studies consistently show that only about 25 percent of school-age children with poor language skills show significant improvements after two, four, or even ten years of school services.  Conversely, seventy-four percent of the children in our study who received Fast ForWord Language had follow-up scores that were significantly greater than their pre-test scores six months after treatment ended.  I judge that to be a substantial benefit."

Sponsored by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), one of the National Institutes of Health, the study looked at children, between the ages of six and nine years, who had been diagnosed with language impairment. The Fast ForWord Language intervention was delivered in an intensive, six-week summer program that also included day camp activities such as arts and crafts, outdoor games, board games and snack time. The children used the Fast ForWord Language software for one hour and 40 minutes each day, five days per week.

The children took a standard language test - the Comprehensive Test of Spoken Language - and completed a variety of auditory processing measures at the beginning and end of the program, as well as three and six months afterward. The children demonstrated statistically significant improvement on the auditory processing measures and the language measures immediately after their six-week program. The children showed even greater improvement when their language skills were tested again six months later.

"Educators need to take notice of the growing number of studies like this that show large improvements in language and/or reading skills when children are provided with intensive treatments," said Dr. Gillam.  "It's time to change business as usual in our schools.  Solutions like this deserve careful consideration." 

Reading program returns in Queens

here is an article about a school in New York returning to Fast ForWord. The schools that work with us do very well in improving their students' skills. This is because of not only the programme but the comittment of the teachers, parents and students to make it work.

You can read the full article and comments here

BY NICHOLAS HIRSHON  DAILY NEWS WRITER NEW YORK Tuesday, February 26th 2008, 4:00 AM

Parents and kids at PS 87 in Middle Village are happy that a computer program that helps learning-disabled kids has won a reprieve with new funding.

A computer program - hailed for improving the reading skills of learning-disabled kids - will return to a Queens school this fall after a 2-1/2-year hiatus, its principal said. Public School 87 in Middle Village won praise from parents in the late 1990s after first signing up for Fast ForWord - language exercises designed for children with conditions like dyslexia.

But budget cuts forced an end to software upgrades a few years ago, Principal Caryn Michaeli said. The school lost out on new features as well as regular curriculum and tech support.

Last year, PS 87 mom Lucy Accardo heard Fast ForWord could help her 8-year-old learning-disabled daughter, Alessia. This month, Accardo helped convince local pols to foot the $10,800 bill to reinstitute the program.

"I'm ecstatic. I feel like a kid at [Walt] Disney World," said Accardo, 33, predicting Fast ForWord will improve Alessia's reading comprehension abilities and overall confidence.

"This is a hidden secret," she added, "and it's a shame no one knows about it."

Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi (D-Forest Hills) will contribute $8,000 to the project, a spokesman said. State Sen. Serphin Maltese (R-Glendale) pledged $4,000. Any cash left after Fast ForWord payments will go toward new school computers, Michaeli said.

The intensive program "develops brain processing efficiency" through daily exercises, according to the manufacturer's Web site.

Among the product's fans is former PS 87 parent JoAnne Scichilone, who believes her dyslexic sons - Ricky, 13, and Joey, 16 - significantly benefited from the program.

"It's my charge now to make sure everybody who needs it gets it," said Scichilone, 36. "We just started seeing improvement, improvement, improvement."

Michaeli said she would have funded Fast ForWord, but it didn't fit into her $6,000 hardware budget, which is set by the city.

"We have to make sure we can staff teachers and stuff like that before external programs," Michaeli said.

But Hevesi and Maltese chipped in. Maltese even suggested he will fund Fast ForWord at more schools if it's a success at PS 87.

"A program like this could really make a difference in a kid's life," he said.

Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) in The Times

Anne Dixey writes in The Times on Saturday 1st March 2008 on APD.

This is how they describe auditory processing disorder. " Hearing starts in the ear, sounds are sent to the brain and the brain interprets them so we can understand. In a child with APD, the brain has difficulty translating the sounds."

Certainly there is not a high awareness of it in amongst education professionals. It is often confused with attention issues and dyslexia.

In short the brain has difficulty processing information that it hears. We have a paper on APD that goes into the condition. Please email me john @ neuron-learning.co.uk for a copy.

The full article is archived here

The Times article link is here

Kenmare Community School

Great to see the TV programme on Kenmare Community School's use of Fast ForWord. This has been a tremendous success for the teachers and the parents, but most of all for the students. Their reading scores have shot up, their learning skills have improved dramatically and best of all their attitude has changed tremendously. All the kids on the programme gained grades in their summer exams, some improved their reading ages by up to 3 years and so on.

The school has involved parents in the supervision of the programme and even some of the previous programme student graduates now supervise the newer kids. The computers are running non-stop all day from 8am to late afternoon. It really is a project worthy of the good name of a community.

I hope that you enjoy it. Please contact me with your questions.

Thank You

Research Book

Scientific Learning has just completed our new Research Summary Book. The research summary book has a synopsis of research studies collected over the years. The book is broken down into the following chapters:

I. Foundational Research

II. University-based Research

III. Gold Standard Research

IV. School-based Research Studies

V. District Case Studies and Student Success Stories

VI. International Research including the UK & Ireland

Please take a look at the book. I am sure that you will be reassured by the quality and results shown.

Here is the link (big file pdf 27KB)

New Products Results

News about the positive benefits of our new Literacy and Literacy Advanced products! 

Our newest products were designed with the today’s teen in mind; appealing characters, graphics and themes, enhanced motivational aspects and content improvements…..and recent data now shows….student progress and results are even faster with these great new products. 

• More trials per session provide students with more opportunities to build and improve skills each day. 
  • Students are experiencing significantly more trials per session with Literacy and Literacy Advanced than Middle & High School or Language to Reading.
    • Fast ForWord to Literacy – average increase in trials per session is 16%!
    • Fast ForWord to Literacy Advanced – average increase in trials per session is 26%!

• Students experience bigger benefits and faster progress with Literacy and Literacy Advanced.
  • Students are completing significantly more content per session than with Middle & High School or Language to Reading...
    • Fast ForWord to Literacy – average increase in percent complete per session is 40%!
    • Fast ForWord to Literacy Advanced – average increase in percent complete per session is 19%!

• Improved motivation = engaged students = means more content completed per session = faster progress = greater learning capacity = Better Results!
  • Students taking Literacy are covering significantly more content in less time than students taking Middle & High School.
    • Literacy students took an average of 4.2 less hours to complete 37% more content.
  • Students taking Literacy Advanced are covering significantly more content in less time than students taking Language to Reading.
    • Literacy students took an average of 2.3 less hours to complete 29% more content.

• Faster student progress = more Fast ForWord students per school year or more Fast ForWord products per student!

Great news indeed !

Videos

Here are some great ways to view the Fast ForWord products in action, news about them and a view on the research.

New Flash Video on Fast ForWord Neuroscience! This 5 minute video gives an overview on how the brain reads and how Fast ForWord products strengthen areas of the brain to build learning capacity

http://scilearn.zftp.com/overview/index.html

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Meet the Fast ForWord Family of Products -- An Overview http://www.scilearn.com/prod2/ (Located under the Products Tab in the sidebar)

Success in Secondary Education -- The

Alaska

Video http://www.scilearn.com/prod2/ (Located under the Products Tab in the sidebar)

Success in the Classroom -- Interviews with teachers and administrators http://www.scilearn.com/prod2/ (Located under the Products Tab in the sidebar)

KSEE Channel 24 News Story on Fast ForWord http://www.scilearn.com/annc/in (Located under the Press & Events tab and then under SLc in the News) Including an interview with Dr. Martha Burnsdex.php3?main=../info/media/ksee