So Much for Individualized in IEP: District Adopts FastForWord

According to a news article, the school district that serves Idaho Falls has adopted a commercial remedial reading program, Fast ForWord for all of its elementary schools.

"We have all children doing them. All the special needs kids, the autistic kids and some of the higher level kids are doing it," says Discovery's Computer Lab Instructor, Margaret Bowden.

The article doesn't say how students will be assigned to participate in the program.  It also doesn't say if, or what kind, of data will be collected on pre- and post- levels of performance. 

A million dollars for a program that has limited success?

• Randomized controlled trials show no significant effect on students’ reading achievement.
• The What Works Clearinghouse considers the extent of evidence for Fast ForWord® to be small for alphabetics and comprehension. No studies that met WWC evidence standards with or without reservations addressed fluency or general reading achievement.
• Fast ForWord has been helpful for some children and not for others.
  
• Overall, we found that participation in the FFW programs did not lead to any advantages in reading and spoken language compared to children receiving similar kinds of reading instruction (without FFW). (2001)

More later as I learn more.

The Bonneville School District has the 7th largest school population in Idaho. The District has 12 elementary schools, housing grades K-6 with 2 pre-school programs and 2 developmental kindergarten programs. The District has two middle schools for grades 7-8 and two high schools for grades 9-12. In addition, there is an alternative middle school and an alternative high school. The District also sponsors a school at the Behavioral Health Center. The District also provides services for a comprehensive special education program. All of our schools and programs are fully accredited.

 The student population of the District is over 9,500 students and growing. The Bonneville School District employs over 1,200 people, of whom, almost 500 are certificated personnel.
District personnel serve over 950 students with disabilities and over 400 that are considered gifted and talented. Pre-school services are provided for students with disbilities age three and four and an array of services are designed to meet the needs of specia

Fast ForWord Adopted by District

By Anthony Congi

With a nearly 69% approval rating for the bond, a new elementary school will be built in Bonneville County.

But a new school isn't the only thing the bond will do for the district. It will also bring the newest computer program in reading and grammar to each District 93 elementary school. It's designed to get students caught up who are behind their classmates in reading.

Developed by two neuro-surgeons, technical engineers and educators... the "Fast ForWord" learning program teaches students to re-work the neurons in the brain by using a video game type display.

But that also comes with a price. The program costs about $150,000 per school. More than one million dollars of the bond will put the program in each elementary school.

Discovery was picked as the first school with the program because of their diversity of kids in terms of learning.

"We have all children doing them. All the special needs kids, the autistic kids and some of the higher level kids are doing it," says Discovery's Computer Lab Instructor, Margaret Bowden.

If a child has any learning disability that could potentially set them back, this program gets the brain going in the right direction and puts the kids on track.

"Several teachers say that they've noticed a remarkable change in how the kids read in class. They were more willing to try things in class and they seem to blossom," says Bowden.

Some games are as simple as following sounds, commands and words. Others work on "fluency reads" where the kids have to read a passage in a certain amount of time to track progress.

"I highly recommend it. I watched it change a young girl's life. She went from a D,F student to an A,B student," says Bowden.

Each school in the district will start using the "Fast ForWord" learning program right away. Some could see it as soon as three months but all will have them before next fall.