Geoffrey Borman and colleagues conducted an evaluation of the popular Fast ForWord™ program, and they reported that, “The Fast ForWord Language program did not, in general, help students in these eight schools improve their language and reading comprehension outcomes.”
This is a well-conceived and conducted evaluation. There are multiple schools with many children at different age levels, and the researchers used sophisticated methods. Still, the results must be discouraging to many folks.
From the beginning, the implementation of the program and the level of support from within the school system and from the program developers, Scientific Learning Corporation, were exemplary. Site visits, observations of the training, communications with the Scientific Learning Corporation, and communications with the teachers and principals implementing Fast ForWord revealed a consistent level of commitment and support across district leadership, school-level leaders, the schools’ teaching staffs, and representatives from Scientific Learning Corporation. Nevertheless, impact analyses of assignment to the Fast ForWord program revealed few encouraging signs of academic benefits approaching those claimed by the program’s developers. In this way, the results raise several questions regarding the potential and the appropriateness of Fast ForWord for improving reading and language outcomes for nonclinical “at-risk” student populations served in school-based settings.
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