Demonstration Day Tips for Fast ForWord Reading Level 5
Introduction
Suggested discussion: “We will exercise our brains during Fast ForWord. Our bodies and brains both need to
exercise to be strong and in shape. We must exercise in order to see the difference and we must work hard.
This will help us to listen better and to do better work in school.”
“We must work together to keep our room quiet and our brains exercising so that all of us get into great shape
for learning. Let’s talk about our rules for our Fast ForWord lab:
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We must have a quiet room.
We must respect our peers and our equipment.
Only take breaks between exercises.
Raise your hand if you need help or have a question.”
“Let’s learn about how to do our Fast ForWord exercises so that when you come in tomorrow, you will know
the rules and instructions.”
Demonstrate the exercises on a Smart Board or other projective device to make all of the directions clear and to
discuss strategies for correct responses with students.
Make it clear from the beginning that accuracy is the key, so students should listen carefully and think before
responding, especially as each item will be presented only once, so listening and focus are very important. (Talk
about self-talk and key word techniques to aid memory.) Guesses will count against students. Also, explain that
POINTS do not necessarily mean progress. Always aim for 10 correct responses in a row for quickest progress
toward completion.
Demonstrations
Toad Loader
“You will help the toad load his packages by recognizing and building sentences
that correctly describe pictures.”
“Click the yellow paw on the crate to start working on the exercise. A picture
will appear behind the toad, depicting a scene. Four sentence fragments appear
as packing labels on the right side of the screen. Based on sentence structure,
one of these sentence fragments can be used to build a sentence that correctly
describes the scene in the picture.”
“Using these rules, select the sentence fragment that should come first in the sentence. The toad grabs and
pastes that label onto the box he is packing. Continue until the sentence is complete and describes the picture
accurately.”
For Keyboard Shortcuts, you also may use the space bar and the number keys, 1 through 4, which correspond to
the responses from top to bottom.
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Wood Works
“Help the wood worker build the dam by sorting the written or pronounced
words into the appropriate categories.”
“Click the yellow paw on the barge, or the spacebar, to see a word displayed on
a piece of wood. Each of the four category bins on the right display a symbol of
different sounds that are in words. One of these symbols represents a sound in
the word. You must identify and then click the category bin with the correct
phonetic symbol to sort the word into the proper phonemic category.”
“Later, the exercise will present a new task. You must listen carefully as a word with a target spelling pattern is
pronounced. Now, each of the category bins displays a spelling pattern. One of these spelling patterns is found
in the target word. You must identify and click the category bin with the correct spelling pattern to sort the
word. The word is briefly displayed to reinforce the spelling pattern, and then it is sorted into the proper
category.”
For Keyboard Shortcuts, you also may use the space bar and the number keys, 1 through 4, which correspond to
the responses from top to bottom.
Gator Jam
“You can help the hippo serenade his sweetheart by completing, and then
categorizing, the various types of analogies presented in the exercise.”
“The first task is to Complete an Analogy which includes a list of four analogy
types that you will complete. Click an analogy type to start working on the
exercise. After an analogy type is selected, the exercise moves outside, where
the spirited band plays music to help the hippo serenade his sweetheart in the
house.”
“Click the yellow paw on the hippo’s T-shirt to see an incomplete analogy presented on the screen. Four
possible responses will be displayed by the musicians in the band. One of the musicians will have the missing
word or phrase that correctly completes the analogy and that is the one you will select.”
After you work on a few analogies, the exercise returns to the computer screen with the list of analogy types.
You then select one of the remaining analogy types, and the exercise presents a few more analogies to
complete. This continues until all of the analogy types listed on the computer screen have been presented.”
“The next task is to Categorize an Analogy. As the exercise progresses, Gator Jam displays one of the
completed analogy statements from earlier in the exercise. Each of the four musicians displays an analogy
type. You must click the analogy type that correctly categorizes the analogical relationship in the statement
above.”
For the Keyboard Shortcuts, the spacebar activates the Start button. Use the number keys, 1 through 4, which
correspond to the responses from left to right.
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Lana’s Lanes
“Lana has an important bowling tournament and needs help. Help her stay
focused by correctly answering questions about the paragraphs and completing
the diagrams, charts and summaries presented.”
“To begin, click the yellow paw on the bowling ball, or the spacebar, to start
working on the exercise. A page of text will be displayed on the screen. When
you finish reading the page, click the “Done Reading” button or spacebar.
“The exercise then presents a comprehension question about the page that was just read. For each question,
four possible answers appear on the screen. Click the box with the correct answer. If you answer incorrectly,
that page and trial will be presented again at the end of the passage.”
“After reading the passage and answering questions about the passage, you will work on a comprehension
strategy task using that passage. These strategy tasks are detailed in the following sections, which are
presented in this order in the exercise – Choose a Diagram, Fill in a Graphic Organizer, Choose a Summary,
Build a Summary.”
“In Choose a Diagram, the concept of the diagram is introduced as the exercise displays four circle diagrams.
The exercise presents a statement related to the passage. Four possible answers appear on the screen. You
must select the diagram that correctly illustrates the statement by clicking the box with the correct answer.”
“With Fill in a Graphic Organizer, the exercise organizes key information from the passage into a graphic
organizer. However, each one is incomplete. You must fill in the graphic organizer by selecting the correct
missing information, as prompted by the exercise.”
“In Choose a Summary, a comprehension strategy task, the concept of the summary is introduced as the
exercise displays four possible summaries of the passage. Select the response that best summarizes that
passage. The exercise then will display the summary on the screen and will ask specific comprehension
questions about it. You must interpret the summary and select the correct answers to the questions.”
“For Build a Summary, you must build a summary of the passage by selecting each sentence of the summary,
in the correct order. Four boxes with sentences appear on the screen, one of which comes first in the summary
so you choose the box with the correct sentence. The exercise then moves that sentence to the top of the
screen. Next, select the sentence that comes second in the summary, and that sentence is moved to the top of
the screen, below the first sentence. Continue to build the summary in this manner, until the summary is
complete. At that time, the exercise displays the summary on the screen and then asks specific comprehension
questions about it. You must interpret the summary and select the correct answers to the questions.”
For the Keyboard Shortcuts, the spacebar activates the Start button. Use the number keys, 1 through 4, which
correspond to the responses from top left to lower right.
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Quack Splash
“Help the diving duck build paragraphs by identifying missing words, phrases,
and sentences, and by sequencing sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs
into a passage. After a passage is constructed, you will answer comprehension
questions about that passage.”
“In the beginning, you click the yellow paw on the beach ball, or the spacebar,
to start. Quack Splash will present either a paragraph completion task or
sentence ordering task.”
“For the paragraph completion task, Quack Splash will display a paragraph on the screen. However, some of
the text in the paragraph is missing. Select the word, phrase, or sentence that best completes the paragraph.”
“For the sentence ordering task, the exercise displays sentences from a paragraph in a scrambled order. You
will select the sentence that comes first in the paragraph. The exercise then moves that sentence to the top of
the screen. Next, select the sentence that comes second in the paragraph, and that sentence fills in after the
first sentence. Continue to build the paragraph until all of the sentences in the paragraph are properly
ordered.”
“When all of the paragraphs in a page have been ordered or completed correctly, the exercise will display the
paragraphs in a scrambled order. You must select the paragraph that comes first in the page. The exercise then
moves that paragraph to the top of the screen. Next, select the paragraph that comes second in the page, and
that paragraph is moved to the top of the screen, below the first paragraph. You will continue to build the
page in this manner, until all of the paragraphs on the page are properly ordered.”
“When all of the paragraphs in a chapter have been ordered correctly, each page in the chapter is displayed on
the screen for review. After you finish reading each page, clicks the ‘Done Reading’ button or the spacebar.
When you’ve finished reading the entire chapter, Quack Splash then will ask questions about the chapter.”
For each question, four possible responses are displayed and you must select the correct answer to each
question.”
The responses, left to right or top to bottom also may be selected with the number keys 1, 2, 3 or 4.
Teacher Tips
If students have good keyboard skills, they can use the number keys to respond for designated exercises.
Instead of clicking on the responses, they can type the corresponding numbers on the keyboard.
*If students are having difficulty during the demo, you can find interventions in the MySciLEARN Toolbox to
pre-teach the skills to help them better understand each of the exercises. Click this link to go to the Reading
Level 5 Intervention page: https://help.scilearn.com/toolbox/interventions-rl5.htm
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