Blended Learning

Wyoming District Turns to Blended Learning to Bring Readers to Grade Level

• By Joshua Bolkan
• 09/20/16

Wyoming's Albany County School District #1 (ACSD) will deploy a blended reading program in an effort to ensure that all students are reading at or above grade level.

ACSD is implementing Scientific Learning's Fast ForWord, an online reading and language intervention program, at nine of its 15 schools. The program is designed to improve reading skills while also developing memory, attention, sequencing and processing skills. Most schools will use the program with struggling students, but at Linford Elementary, a Title I school, all students will use the program three to five times each week.

"The reasons students struggle are as varied as the students themselves, but much of it comes down to the core cognitive skills that make learning possible. This is why we selected Fast ForWord," said John Weigel, ACSD's assistant superintendent of curriculum, instruction and accountability, in a prepared statement. "In our previous districts, Superintendent Jubal Yennie and I both saw how students' focus, confidence and achievement improved after using the program. We are committed to helping every student, no matter what difficulties they have, and we know that Fast ForWord can help remediate the underlying difficulties that keep struggling readers from making progress."