Providing Effective English Language Reading, Listening, and Speaking Support
Academic English takes 7+ years to learn. For some, it takes even longer.
You can speed up how quickly your English language learner students develop English using the same 3-step approach that other schools and districts are using now. Our Build English Fast™ solution uses patented technology to:
- Prepare the brain to “hear” English. With a brain “wired” for Spanish or any other language, English-language learning can be slow and labored. Through English sound training exercises, your students' brains become "wired" to hear and quickly process the phonemes of English.
- Provide your students with 1000s of opportunities to practice grammar, vocabulary, and listening skills using fun exercises that respond to each student.
- Listen and support your students as they speak and read aloud. Using advanced speech recognition technology allows you to offer support to a whole classroom of students, all at the same time.
Our Build English Fast™ solution is a combination of Fast ForWord® software (the top-ranking ELD intervention on What Works Clearinghouse) and Reading Assistant Plus™ software, which listens to students as they read aloud.
NEW! JUST ADDED! English language development teacher lessons are now included in the Build English Fast solution. See a sample lesson here.
Stuck at Intermediate?
Don’t let your students plateau. So many English Language Learners struggle to move beyond the basic and intermediate levels, but when a group of Deer Valley, AZ USD English Language Learners used the Fast ForWord program, 68% of the “Intermediate” students moved up to Proficient in less than a school year.
Read the full report See all English Language Learner results
Watch: Build the ELL Brain Webinar
Length: 30 minutes (with 15 minutes of Q&A at the end)
Dr. Martha Burns, Ph.D., Adjunct Associate Professor at Northwestern University
Despite educators’ best efforts to teach students English as quickly as possible, many never develop academic English fluency. Join Dr. Martha Burns as she reviews the newest research on the English Language Learner (ELL) brain, the advantages of true bilingualism, and how effective technological adjuncts can build the English brain, quickly, moving ELL students to proficiency.
Fast ForWord
Fast ForWord is an online reading intervention that uses the principles of neuroplasticity–the ability of the brain to rewire and improve–to accelerate English language learning. It is also the top ranked intervention for English language development on What Works Clearinghouse!
What skills does it target?
- Builds the phonemic map in the brain for the English language
- Helps to speed up English language acquisition
- Teaches new vocabulary
- Targets listening comprehension and following directions
- Incorporates all forms of English grammar, simple to complex
Fast ForWord Testimonial
Bruce, a high school student from Dallas ISD, talks about how Fast ForWord helped him.
Reading Assistant Plus
Reading Assistant Plus is the only online reading tool that uses speech recognition to support English Language Learners as they read aloud.
How does it work?
- Acts as a non-judgmental listener, guiding English Language Learners (ELLs) through just-right reading selections
- Corrects ELLs when they misread a word
- Builds ease and comfort with speaking and reading in English
- Helps to build language and reading fluency
Watch: ELL Recorded Webinar
Reading English as a Second Language: Challenges and Solutions
Dr. Virginia Mann discusses the benefits of early immersion in English, the need for phoneme awareness in any language, and the challenge of morphology—homophones, irregular verbs and nouns and vocabulary. She also introduces the Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant Plus programs and explains how they accelerate English language acquisition for your ELLs.
Reading Assistant Plus Progress Demo
| ESL student reading a passage for the first time. |
Click the play button to start and the pause button to stop. Pause one Progress Demo before playing the other. |
| ESL student reading the same passage 45 minutes later. |
Click the play button to start and the pause button to stop. Pause one Progress Demo before playing the other. |
