School bond will help all elementary students in District 93

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Story Published: Dec 11, 2008 at 6:08 PM MST

Story Updated: Dec 12, 2008 at 3:18 PM MST

By Anthony Congi

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BONNEVILLE COUNTY - With a nearly 69% approval rating for the bond, a new elementary school will be built in Bonneville County.

But a new school isn't the only thing the bond will do for the district. It will also bring the newest computer program in reading and grammar to each District 93 elementary school. It's designed to get students caught up who are behind their classmates in reading.

Developed by two neuro-surgeons, technical engineers and educators... the "Fast ForWord" learning program teaches students to re-work the neurons in the brain by using a video game type display.

But that also comes with a price. The program costs about $150,000 per school. More than one million dollars of the bond will put the program in each elementary school.

Discovery was picked as the first school with the program because of their diversity of kids in terms of learning.

"We have all children doing them. All the special needs kids, the autistic kids and some of the higher level kids are doing it," says Discovery's Computer Lab Instructor, Margaret Bowden.

If a child has any learning disability that could potentially set them back, this program gets the brain going in the right direction and puts the kids on track.

"Several teachers say that they've noticed a remarkable change in how the kids read in class. They were more willing to try things in class and they seem to blossom," says Bowden.

Some games are as simple as following sounds, commands and words.
Others work on "fluency reads" where the kids have to read a passage in a certain amount of time to track progress.

"I highly recommend it. I watched it change a young girl's life. She went from a D,F student to an A,B student," says Bowden.

Each school in the district will start using the "Fast ForWord" learning program right away. Some could see it as soon as three months but all will have them before next fall.

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