Terms and concepts

Not sure what everyone's talking about? This glossary provides a complete list of terms and concepts related to mySciLEARN and the Fast ForWord/Reading Assistant Plus products.

    A
  • A set of required tasks within a Reading Assistant Plus selection. Each selection includes three activities: Preview and Read, Read and Record, and Take the Quiz.
  • The ability of the Fast ForWord exercises to adapt (or adjust) to the individual skill level of each student to appropriately challenge that student.
  • An indicator in the Fast ForWord reports (a yellow icon) that appears when a student is not progressing in the current component as desired and may benefit by moving to the next component. Click the indicator for detailed recommendations.
  • An indicator in the Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant Plus reports (a red flag icon) that appears when a student requires an immediate intervention with the current component. Click the alert for detailed recommendations. See also: intervene alert, comprehension alert, WCPM alert
  • A Fast ForWord or Reading Assistant Plus product component associated with a particular student. Assignments can be automatically or manually created. See also: Auto Assign, Auto Initial Assignment
  • ATOS Grade Equivalent, an identifier that maps a student's test score to a grade-appropriate skill level. Used by Reading Assistant Plus to identify the readability level of a selection.
  • An identifier that maps a student's test score to a grade-appropriate skill level, used by Reading Assistant Plus to identify the readability level of a selection.
  • A score in the Fast ForWord reports that measures how well a student met the weekly attendance requirement. Students are expected to use a component either three days or five days a week, depending on the protocol, and must complete at least 30% of the expected work time that day.
  • A student's reading of a Reading Assistant Plus selection, available to staff members on the group and student reports.
  • A speech recognition assignment setting for Reading Assistant Plus that allows staff to manage audio support for the Think About Its and the Take the Quiz questions in a selection. Audio support is enabled by default.
  • The default Fast ForWord assignment method in mySciLEARN. It automatically assesses and places a student in the most appropriate Fast ForWord product. Can be set at the school level or the individual student level. Requires Reading Progress Indicator (RPI).
  • An optional assignment method that automatically assigns Reading Assistant Plus, assesses a student, then places that student at the most appropriate starting point. Can be set at the school level or the individual student level. Requires Reading Progress Indicator (RPI).
  • Refers to the entire Reading Progress Indicator feature, which “automatically” administers assessments based on product usage. Helps differentiate these assessments from manually assigned assessments. See "Reading Progress Indicator (RPI)"
  • B
  • The ability of the brain to change through experience or learning.
  • C
  • Various aspects of the character in a passage or story; authors develop characterization by providing these.
  • An indicator in the Fast ForWord reports (a green checkmark icon) that appears when a student has completed most of the material available in the assignment and is ready to progress to the next component. Click the indicator for detailed recommendations.
  • A rate in the Fast ForWord reports that measures how well a student met the weekly completion goal for an assignment. Completion goals are unique for each Fast ForWord component and protocol, and typically vary week to week. Completion goals also expect that the student will complete the protocol each week. Because research has shown that good completion rates are related to better outcomes, completion rate is also used to measure overall implementation. See also: implementation score.
  • A skill used by readers to understand and learn from text while they read. Measured by the RPI assessments and reported in the Reading Progress Indicator reports. In the Reading Assistant Plus reports, measured by the quiz score in the third activity, Take the Quiz.
  • An indicator in the Reading Assistant Plus reports (a red flag icon) that appears when a student is struggling to comprehend the content (less than 80% correct on 3 of the last 5 quizzes). Click the alert for detailed recommendations.
  • In Reading Assistant Plus, how well the student understands the material, measured by the quiz score. Student demonstrate comprehension in the third activity, Take the Quiz.
  • A strategy used by readers to decode text, understand words, and construct meanings from text. In Fast ForWord, students use strategies such as summarizing, asking questions, and using graphic organizers. In Reading Assistant Plus, students generally practice comprehension strategies using the Think About Its within a selection (and occasionally using the quiz questions in Take the Quiz).
  • A server set up at by a school or district that provides a local source for the product content files, helping improve the performance of the Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant Plus products.
  • See "library"
  • How a student moves through the content in their assigned Reading Assistant Plus library. Choose from: 1) locked, which only allows the student move through the content as it is ordered within the library, 2) student selected, which allows the student to choose the order in which they move through the selections or activities, or 3) unlocked (teachers only), which allows users to access any activity in any selection at any time for classroom instruction.
  • Information from the surrounding words, illustrations, or sentences that helps give meaning to a specific word or phrase.
  • (comma separated file) In mySciLEARN, a file used to import or update multiple users into the product. CSV files use commas to separate information into columns and fields, and use a new line to create rows of individual items.
  • One of three standard staff roles (district manager, school manager, instructor) whose permissions and/or role name have been modified to meet specific staff needs at a school or district.
  • D
  • A feature in the Reports that lets staff filter report data based on when students used the product. By default, most of the reports show the last four weeks of product use.
  • The ability to decipher written words. Decoding requires phonological awareness as well as an understanding of sound-symbol correspondences. Measured by the RPI assessments and reported in the Reading Progress Indicator reports.
  • A group of students created in mySciLEARN, which provides access to the group functions on the Students page and the teacher reports on the Reports page. See also: group
  • Shortened versions of the Fast ForWord products that allow staff to step through the exercises as a demonstration for students, parents, or other interested parties, and that allow students to practice training on the exercises without impacting their overall scores.
  • A benchmark in the Reading Assistant Plus reports that indicates the percentage of selections completed by the student at a performance level of "developing" or "proficient." See also: performance level
  • Within the Fast ForWord Foundations and Elements components, the use of computers to slow down and enhance the sounds that convey phonemes so that they can be differentiated.
  • The process of detecting differences between and/or among stimuli.
  • A standard staff role that provides complete administrative rights for all schools in the district. This is the highest level role within mySciLEARN, and is intended for district and system administrative staff.
  • To use facts and inferences to make a judgment or decision.
  • See "sound sweep duration"
  • In the Fast ForWord Foundations and Elements components, a patented processing algorithm that slows the rate of the entire speech signal while still maintaining the speech signal's natural quality. By lengthening the duration of the speech, the fast speech elements (such as stop consonants) are further apart from the steady speech elements (such as vowels), which provides the auditory nervous system with more time to respond to the fast speech sounds.
  • E
  • (n.) A fun, interactive component within a Fast ForWord product that focuses on a set of specific cognitive skills. Each Fast ForWord product includes multiple exercises that work together to help strengthen language and reading skills.
  • An explanation at the beginning of each Fast ForWord exercise that explains how to work on that exercise, in English (default) or Spanish.
  • F
  • Language that makes use of certain literary devices or literary techniques such as metaphor in which something other than the literal meaning is implied.
  • See "alert"
  • See "alert"
  • See "flash cards" (two words)
  • The ability to read a text accurately and quickly. Fluent readers can decode and recognize words automatically and understand their meaning at the same time. In Reading Assistant Plus, fluency is measured by comparing the words correct per minute (WCPM) score to a goal specific to each selection. Students demonstrate fluency in the second activity, Read and Record.
  • Also called Words Correct per Minute (WCPM) goal, the number of words a fluent reader should be able to correctly read aloud in one minute.
  • See "sound sweep frequency"
  • G
  • A score in the Reading Progress Indicator reports that reflects improvement from an earlier RPI assessment to a later RPI assessment. Gain scores are reported in terms of grade equivalent scores and percentile scores, and are based on a ten month academic school year.
  • A feature in the Preview and Read activity that lets the student review vocabulary words within the selection. Also available in the Word Wall activity.
  • A Reading Assistant Plus assignment setting that allows staff to choose the language(s) for the glossary within a selection. Choose from English (default) or English and Spanish.
  • In the Reading Progress Indicator reports, a score that provides a general idea of how a student is performing with reference to younger and older students who took the same RPI assessment. For example, a very advanced third grader might earn a grade equivalent score of 5.3 on the level 2-3 RPI assessment. This student is performing well above average on third grade level material, yet this does not mean the student is ready for fifth grade level material.
  • A visual device for organizing information around a concept, theme, or topic.
  • (n.) A set of students within a single school, created by a staff member to more effectively manage students that have something in common; for example, students in the same classroom, in same grade, or at the same reading level.
  • A method developed by Fountas and Pinnell and used by Reading Assistant Plus to identify the readability level of a selection.
  • H
  • See “high interest/low reading level”
  • See "high interest/low reading level"
  • Common words that appear very often in written or spoken language (for example, the, of, and, a, to, in, is, you).
  • In Reading Assistant Plus, texts designed to interest students in middle school and beyond, but written at lower reading levels to provide intensive reading support for those students.
  • See "high interest/low reading level"
  • See “high interest/low reading level”
  • I
  • A score in the Fast ForWord reports that indicates how well a student is meeting the weekly implementation goal, which represents overall implementation success. See also: completion rate
  • A CSV file used to import multiple students or staff members into mySciLEARN. Designed for use at the school and district levels only.
  • A Reading Assistant Plus assignment setting that allows staff to choose the language for the student instructions in the product. Choose from English (default) or Spanish.
  • A standard staff role that provides management rights over specific students and groups at an individual school. The instructor role is intended for staff members such as teachers and lab coaches.
  • An indicator in the Fast ForWord reports (a red flag icon) that indicates the student is not progressing as well as desired in one or more of the exercises. Click the alert for detailed recommendations.
  • Approaches to promote positive classroom behaviors and foster effective learning.
  • A speech recognition assignment setting for Reading Assistant Plus that determines how long the software waits to intervene during a student's reading of a selection.
  • A Fast ForWord assignment option that allows you to set the language used in the introductions at the beginning of each exercise, which explains how to work on that exercise. Choose from English (default) or Spanish.
  • See "sound sweep ISI"
  • L
  • See "student"
  • See "assignment"
  • Written English has complex rules governing the associations between the speech sounds (phonemes) and the letters or spelling patterns (graphemes) that are used to represent them. For example, the first sound in "cat" is represented with the letter "c," but in different contexts the same sound may be represented with the letter "k" as in "kite," "ck" as in "rock," "cc" as in "acclaim," "x" as in "exit," and "q" as in "equal." Conversely, the letter "c" represents different sounds in different contexts such as “cent” and “rich.”
  • The relationship between a letter (or spelling pattern) and the speech sound (or sounds) it represents. See also “letter-sound associations”
  • A thinking skill that enables a proficient reader to read beyond the text. In the Reading Assistant Plus reports, this skill is measured by the Think About It and quiz questions, which are associated with a specific level of thinking: literal, inferential, evaluation, analysis.
  • Lexile® Framework for Reading, an educational tool developed by MetaMetrics, Inc., used by Reading Assistant Plus to identify the readability level of a selection.
  • A set of Reading Assistant Plus (texts) that can be assigned to a student.
  • In the context of reading, the ability to understand successive sentences and derive meaning from a story.
  • An implementation scenario where students train on the SLC products from multiple locations; for example, from school and from home.
  • See "content progression"
  • M
  • A feature within Reading Progress Indicator that lets instructors manually administer additional RPI assessments to students who are already using Reading Progress Indicator. See "Reading Progress Indicator (RPI)"
  • N
  • A score in the Reading Progress Indicator reports that compares a student's RPI assessment score to the scores of a large national sample. For example, if a student scored in the 70th percentile on an assessment, that student performed better than 70% of the students in his or her grade who took the same assessment as part of the calibration study.
  • Speech that has not been digitally processed or altered. See also "digitally-enhanced speech sounds"
  • Used along with the subnet mask to define the external IP address range for the district network. Required when setting up a content acceleration server for home use.
  • The study of the brain and its functions, especially their relation to behavior and learning.
  • A word that does not exist in the English language but follows basic English spelling patterns to encourage accurate decoding for unfamiliar words. Used within a few Fast ForWord exercises.
  • P
  • A score in the Fast ForWord reports that measures how well a student met the weekly participation requirement. Students are expected to complete a component's protocol (30 to 90 minutes per day, depending on the protocol) each day that the student used the component.
  • A license that permits one individual student to access the licensed product(s) during the specified license term.
  • See "national percentile score"
  • See "national percentile score"
  • In the Reading Assistant Plus reports, a rating that indicates a student's performance by measuring fluency and comprehension, two critical reading skills. Students can earn one of three ratings: proficient, developing, emerging. Used to calculate the Reading Level High Score.
  • Words or syllables that differ by a single speech sound (phoneme) such as ba/da or run/rung.
  • The smallest units of sound in spoken language that make a difference in the meaning of words. When added together, phonemes create syllables, which allow the creation of words. English contains 44 phonemes, which are represented by the 26 letters of the alphabet.
  • The ability of a neural network to be reconfigured or rewired; changing connections within a neural network.
  • Within a few of the Fast ForWord exercises (such as Sky Gym in Foundations I,) a stage of the exercise that prepares the student for the tasks in the exercise, usually by starting at an easier level to help the student "warm up" for the main task.
  • See "digitally-enhanced speech sounds"
  • In the context of reading, the ability to distinguish speech sounds and identify letter and word forms and how these embody the relation between printed words and the spoken words they represent.
  • Within the Fast ForWord Foundations and Elements components, a level that corresponds to a specific degree of speech processing (see "digitially-enhanced speech sounds" for more information). As the student progresses through the levels in an exercise, the software decreases this processing, and eventually presents the words using natural speech.
  • A speech recognition assignment setting for Reading Assistant Plus that allows staff to choose how strictly the software monitors the student's pronunciation.
  • A Fast ForWord product usage schedule that determines which exercises are worked on, how often those exercises are worked on, and how long each exercise is worked on a given day. The Fast ForWord protocols have been proven to help maximize the benefits of the products.
  • Q
  • A set of questions in the Take the Quiz activity in Reading Assistant Plus, designed to assess selection comprehension while evaluating comprehension skills and levels of thinking.
  • R
  • The difficulty level of the Reading Assistant Plus selections.
  • In the Reading Assistant Plus reports, a score that represents the highest reading level mastered by a student. Students master a reading level by completing selections at that reading level and achieving an acceptable words correct per minute (WCPM) score while maintaining good comprehension. See also: performance level
  • See "content placement"
  • In the Reading Progress Indicator reports, categories of achievement that describe student performance in the skills measured by the RPI assessments. Categories include: struggling, emerging, proficient, advanced. Established by aligning results from the RPI calibration study with information from various states regarding the percentage of students that achieve proficiency on high-stakes assessments.
  • Also called RPI. An assessment tool within mySciLEARN that automatically administers reading assessments to students. The RPI assessments provide overall reading scores that can help indicate how students are responding to Fast ForWord product use. Also used by Auto Assign to create assignments and place students within the product. Results can be viewed in the Reading Progress Indicator reports.
  • An assessment tool within mySciLEARN that automatically administers reading assessments to students. The RPI assessments provide overall reading scores that can help indicate how students are responding to Fast ForWord product use. Assessment results are reported in the Reading Progress Indicator reports.
  • A feature in the Reading Assistant Plus reports that lets staff save copies of a student’s recordings for reviewing and archiving purposes.
  • Acronym for Reading Progress Indicator, an assessment tool within mySciLEARN that automatically administers reading assessments to students. The RPI assessments provide overall reading scores that can help indicate how students are responding to Fast ForWord product use. Also used by Auto Assign to create assignments and place students within the product. Results can be viewed in the Reading Progress Indicator reports.
  • A school level option for RPI that sets the yearly schedule followed at your school: standard school year (default) or year-round school.
  • S
  • A Reading Assistant Plus assignment option that allows staff to set a time limit to training sessions. See also: protocol
  • A standard staff role that provides administrative rights for all of the staff members, students, and groups at specific schools in the district.
  • An individual text in an assigned Reading Assistant Plus library to be read by the student.
  • In the Fast ForWord Foundations and Elements components, a patented processing algorithm that identifies the fast transitional elements within the speech (such as the /b/ sound in the word bat) and then selectively amplifies those elements. By applying these selective intensity increases, the more rapid transitional phonemes in the speech are emphasized, allowing the auditory nervous system to respond more vigorously to the fast speech sounds.
  • A license that permits an unlimited number of students enrolled at one school to access the licensed product(s) during the specified license term.
  • Within the Fast ForWord Foundations and Elements components, an exercise that presents complex auditory information in a sub-word format, such as frequency sweeps and syllables. In some instances, the speech sounds have been digitally generated using patented methods (including selective intensity increases and duration extensions) to provide enhanced learning opportunities.
  • The ability to recognize, analyze, and/or produce a number of sounds combined in sequence. These tend to be the high frequency words, many of which do not use phonetic spellings.
  • A brief tonal sound that either starts at a lower frequency and ends at a higher frequency (an "up" sweep) or starts at a higher frequency and ends at a lower frequency (a "down" sweep). The properties of a sound sweep vary based on frequency and duration. Several of the Fast ForWord exercises (such as Sky Gym in Foundations I) use sound sweeps to help improve the speed at which one can identify rapid, successive changes in sounds.
  • Within a Fast ForWord sound sweep exercise (such as Sky Gym in Foundations I), the length of each sound sweep.
  • Within a Fast ForWord sound sweep exercise (such as Sky Gym in Foundations I), the starting frequency for each of the sound sweeps (also called frequency modulation sweeps) in a sequence. The base frequencies for the sound sweeps cover the most common frequencies found in speech: 500, 1000, and 2000 Hz.
  • Within a Fast ForWord sound sweep exercise (such as Sky Gym in Foundations I), the duration of the silence between each sound sweep in a sequence.
  • Within some of the Fast ForWord exercises, a part of the exercise that provides an opportunity for the student to review the material and earn extra points. In general, the software tracks student responses during the Speed Round but does not use this information to advance the student’s standing in the exercise.
  • A mySciLEARN administrator whose rights, or permissions, are defined by an assigned staff role that has a specific function and includes a specific set of permissions.
  • A set of permissions assigned to a staff member. The system includes three standard staff roles (district manager, school manager, instructor). You can also create custom staff roles to meet your school or district needs.
  • One of three staff roles built into mySciLEARN: district manager, school manager, instructor. Can be modified and saved as a custom staff role to meet district and school needs.
  • An indicator in the Fast ForWord reports that appears when a student reaches specific milestones within an assignment and requires immediate attention. See also: adjust status, complete status, switch status
  • The basic parts of a story: setting, characters, plot, conflict, point of view, and theme.
  • A learner who is using Fast ForWord or Reading Assistant Plus in mySciLEARN.
  • See "content progression"
  • A student's home page within mySciLEARN. It provides access to that student's product assignments, Reading Progress Indicator assessments, and the product demos. Only students can access the Student Exercises page.
  • The default security level for mySciLEARN, which requires that all student users enter a secure login and password to access the software.
  • A password created by staff (or automatically generated by the system) used by a student, along with the student's username, to log in to mySciLEARN.
  • A username created by staff (or automatically generated by the system) used by a student, along with the student's password, to log in to mySciLEARN.
  • Used along with the network ID to define the external IP address range for the district network. Required when setting up a content acceleration server for home use.
  • A feature within each Fast ForWord exercise that appears when the student finishes a daily schedule (or when the student exits an exercise), which provides the student with a quick view of his or her success in each of the product's exercises, along with any points earned in the exercises.
  • Make a brief statement about the essential ideas in a text.
  • An indicator in the Fast ForWord reports (a green circle icon) that appears when the student has completed most of the material available in the current assignment and may be ready to proceed to the next component. Click the indicator for detailed recommendations.
  • Words comprise one or more syllables. Each syllable has a single vowel sound, which may be preceded and/or followed by one or more consonants. For example, the words "bait," "ate," and "bay" are all single syllable words, while the word "syllable" itself has three syllables (syl-la-ble). Several of the Fast ForWord exercises contrast syllables such as "ba" vs. "da" to help students learn to distinguish similar speech sounds.
  • T
  • Questions and tasks in the Preview and Read activity in Reading Assistant Plus, designed to improve the student’s comprehension of a selection.
  • A feature that allows district managers to manage the Scientific Learning licenses at their schools.
  • A feature that allows district staff to move students from one school to another school in mySciLEARN.
  • U
  • See "content progression"
  • A CSV file used to update existing students in mySciLEARN. Designed for use at the school and district levels only.
  • W
  • See "Words Correct Per Minute"
  • An indicator in the Reading Assistant Plus reports (a red flag icon) that indicates the student is struggling to read the content at an appropriate rate (75% or less of the WCPM goal on 3 of the last 5 selections). Click the alert for detailed recommendations.
  • Within the Fast ForWord Foundations and Elements components, an exercise that presents words, either in isolation or within sentences, with various levels of linguistic complexity. In some instances, the speech sounds have been digitally altered using patented methods (including selective intensity increases and duration extensions) to provide enhanced learning opportunities.
  • Also called WCPM. The number of words a student can correctly read aloud in one minute, used to measure fluency in Reading Assistant Plus.
  • The number of words a student can correctly read aloud in one minute, used to measure fluency in Reading Assistant Plus.