The Learning Success Blog

The Fast ForWord reading and language program has received an official re-endorsement from the Council of Administrators of Special Education (CASE). Fast ForWord’s CASE endorsement now enters its 7th year and will extend through December 2024. Read the Businesswire announcement here.

Developed for struggling readers, Fast ForWord is a unique 3-in-1 program that simultaneously develops reading, cognitive, and social-emotional learning skills to efficiently build reading and learning skills. Included in the Fast ForWord suite of exercises is Reading Assistant, an innovative guided reading tool that uses speech verification technology to support and listen to students as they read aloud, acting as a guided reading coach.

Every year many children move to a new school.

And as Covid makes working from home more common, prompting parents to relocate away from big cities, even more students may be faced with the challenge of integrating into another school.

Generally, there are three times in a child’s life when they must deal with education-related change: starting pre-school, moving to primary school and moving to secondary school.

When a child is starting school, they are generally with other children who are all new starters too. But if you have relocated to a new area, your child may be the only new student and it can sometimes feel a little overwhelming. Fortunately, there are ways that you can help them.

Here are some tips for settling your child into a new primary school so that they can enjoy the experience and learn successfully. 

Educators and schools around the world are increasingly using the knowledge, techniques, and programs developed from a new understanding of how our brains learn. They are applying neuroscience in their classrooms.

Why?

As an educator, you might be asking yourself why would I do this in my school?

Here are some reasons why. Educational neuroscience can:

Are you concerned your child's social skills may not be up to scratch?

Here you will find some strategies, tips and activities to help your children improve their social skills. You will also learn where to look for online programs and professional help. And if you want to dive deeper into the topic, there are some links to resources from around the world.

But first, what are social skills anyway, and why should you care about them?

Social skills include behaviours and emotional competencies

Social skills include a range of behavioural and emotional competencies such as:

There was a Covid outbreak at a school near where I live.

A lot of the teachers at that school had to isolate. Added to that were the staff who hadn’t returned to school because they’re unvaccinated. This created a drain on the pool of casual teachers in the local area.

I work for LearnFast but I like to keep my hand in by doing a little casual teaching work for the department. So when all the casual teachers in my area were covering the Covid affected classes, I got a call from my old school which is also close to where I live.

Researchers suggest that engagement in risky play provides children an opportunity to navigate and cope with uncertainty, resulting in decreased anxiety, according to a recent Canadian study.

Risky play is defined as a thrilling activity involving challenges that test limits and the possibility of getting injured. Typically, children love trying out new things and, in the process, seek opportunities that allow them to engage in challenging activities or risky play.

While risky play might seem dangerous for kids, it offers many benefits, including improved social, motor, and spatial skills, critical aspects in building student learning capacity. Below are some of the essential roles of risky play in early childhood learning and development.

Do you know what this means?:

"Brain wave oscillation bands appear to be a major mechanism co-ordinating billions of nerves across different brain regions to perform even basic cognitive tasks such as paying attention to someone who is talking and understanding what they are saying."

It's about brain science, language learning and reading, and it may help your children or students.

For most of us brain science is mysterious, a field of knowledge open only to neuroscientists. Much of what we read about how our brains work, how brains learn and what can go wrong with them is written by people who have no special knowledge of brain science. They are generally reporting summarised conclusions of scientific research.

Fast ForWord and MATHia have been named as Award (Gong) winners in the 2021 Best Tools for Back to School (USA). They were awarded for helping students, parents, and teachers succeed as they head back to school.

The new Awards of Excellence program is published by:
Tech&Learning (techlearning.com) TOOLS & IDEAS TO TRANSFORM EDUCATION

And is designed to help their readers find the most impressive products and solutions for their work in any learning environment.

If you’d like your child or students to be a better reader then Fast ForWord Reading Comprehension program could help.

The exercises work on the underlying skills of Working Memory, Attention,Processing and Sequencing this helps all learning becomes easier.

What to expect from Reading Comprehension

• A concentrated focus on reading comprehension and the sub-skills that build it, from fluent decoding and grammar skills, to comprehension strategies 
• Practice in reading for understanding with a wide range of texts, including fiction, expository prose, tables, instructions, diagrams, and flowcharts—the kinds of texts that students encounter when reading to learn across the subject areas
• A new look and feel, with graphics age-appropriate for secondary learners and motivational features to keep students engaged and learning
• Improved adaptivity and responsiveness, so that individual students get the content they need at the right level of challenge
• Just-in-time supports, to help students work more independently and stay motivated
• A safe learning environment, where students can take chances without fear of judgment by their peers
• The same research-driven design and content that have made Fast ForWord a reliable, evidence-based solution for over 20 years.