Brain Game Teaching Kids to Read

WINTER SPRINGS, Fla. (Fox 35 WOFL) - It may look like a bright and colorful game with fun sounds and tones to keep kids entertained, but it’s much more than a game. The tones aren't for entertainment. They're the building blocks for words.

“It stretches out the sound and amplifies it so the brain has more time to perceive the key differences in those sounds,” explains Jacqueline Egli, executive director of Bridges Academy in Winter Springs, Fla.

It's a brain based software program called " Fast Forword " and it helps kids with learning disabilities improve their reading skills.

“About 20 to 25 percent of students today will experience some form of challenge in learning,” Egli explains.

She says the computer exercises work to build a child's attention span and memory and also helps them process what they're hearing. Those skills transfer directly to reading.

“The beauty of this particular exercise or series of products is that it is very efficient, very customized for the individual learner,” Egli says. “It's very prescriptive.”

Fast Forword starts with listening skills, using long loud letters and words, and progresses through reading comprehension and reading out loud.

In fact, Egli says in six to eight weeks Fast Forword can improve a child's reading level by multiple grades and MRI scans, pre and post training, show an increase in brain activity in kids with dyslexia.

“For many of my students, in my early days as an educator, it might take me three, four, five years to make six to eight months of solid improvement,” Egli says. “Now with this particular type of technology, we're seeing that kind of result in weeks.”

There is also an adult version of the product series for the aging brain.