Not sure what everyone's talking about? This glossary provides a complete list of terms and concepts related to mySciLEARN and the Fast ForWord products.
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The ability of the Fast ForWord exercises to adapt (or adjust) to the individual skill level of each student to appropriately challenge that student.
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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.
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An indicator in the Fast ForWord reports (a red flag icon) that appears when a student requires an immediate intervention with the current component. Click the alert for detailed recommendations.
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A Fast ForWord product component associated with a particular student. Assignments can be automatically or manually created. See also: Auto Assign
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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.
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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).
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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)"
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The ability of the brain to change through experience or learning.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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A server set up by a school or district that provides a local source for the product content files, helping improve the performance of the Fast ForWord products.
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Information from the surrounding words, illustrations, or sentences that helps give meaning to a specific word or phrase.
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(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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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The process of detecting differences between and/or among stimuli.
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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.
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To use facts and inferences to make a judgment or decision.
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See "sound sweep duration"
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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.
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(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.
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An explanation at the beginning of each Fast ForWord exercise that explains how to work on that exercise, in English (default) or Spanish.
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Language that makes use of certain literary devices or literary techniques such as metaphor in which something other than the literal meaning is implied.
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See "alert"
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See "sound sweep frequency"
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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.
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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.
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A visual device for organizing information around a concept, theme, or topic.
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(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 the same grade, or at the same reading level.
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Common words that appear very often in written or spoken language (for example, the, of, and, a, to, in, is, you).
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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
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A CSV file used to import multiple students or staff members into mySciLEARN. Designed for use at the school and district levels only.
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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.
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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.
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Approaches to promote positive classroom behaviors and foster effective learning.
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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.
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See "sound sweep ISI"
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See "student"
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See "assignment"
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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.”
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The relationship between a letter (or spelling pattern) and the speech sound (or sounds) it represents. See also “letter-sound associations”
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In the context of reading, the ability to understand successive sentences and derive meaning from a story.
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An implementation scenario where students train on the SLC products from multiple locations; for example, from school and from home.
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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)"
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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.
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Speech that has not been digitally processed or altered. See also "digitally-enhanced speech sounds"
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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.
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The study of the brain and its functions, especially their relation to behavior and learning.
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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.
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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.
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A license that permits one individual student to access the licensed product(s) during the specified license term.
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See "national percentile score"
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See "national percentile score"
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Words or syllables that differ by a single speech sound (phoneme) such as ba/da or run/rung.
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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.
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The ability of a neural network to be reconfigured or rewired; changing connections within a neural network.
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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.
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See "digitally-enhanced speech sounds"
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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See "Readng Progress Indicator"
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A school level option for RPI that sets the yearly schedule followed at your school: standard school year (default) or year-round school.
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A standard staff role that provides administrative rights for all of the staff members, students, and groups at specific schools in the district.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Within a Fast ForWord sound sweep exercise (such as Sky Gym in Foundations I), the length of each sound sweep.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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The basic parts of a story: setting, characters, plot, conflict, point of view, and theme.
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A learner who is using Fast ForWord in mySciLEARN.
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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.
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The default security level for mySciLEARN, which requires that all student users enter a secure login and password to access the software.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Make a brief statement about the essential ideas in a text.
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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.
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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.
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A student-facing report that appears when a student finishes their daily schedule or otherwise exits a Fast ForWord component. This report provides a quick view of the student’s success on each exercise, in terms of completion, highest streaks, points, and time.
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A feature that allows district managers to manage the Scientific Learning licenses at their schools.
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A feature that allows district staff to move students from one school to another school in mySciLEARN.
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A CSV file used to update existing students in mySciLEARN. Designed for use at the school and district levels only.
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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.
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See also