Fast ForWord Computer Reading Program is KindaSlow!
When technology fails, shouldn’t there be accountability–like real teachers?
In Gainesville, Florida, home of the prestigious University of Florida, the Alachua School District spent $1.9 million on a reading computer program called Fast ForWord.
But children who did Fast ForWord did worse than children not participating in the program!
Will the company Scientific Learning pay the money back to the district? No. Alachua will continue Fast ForWord because they claim there were some gains for certain children.
Yet, according to The Gainesville Sun, outside studies by the U.S. Institute of Education Sciences, an evaluation branch of the Education Department, indicate Fast ForWord has no apparent effects on reading fluency, and only mixed effects on comprehension.
Another study in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, and Allied Fast ForWord Computer Reading Program is KindaSlow!:
