WordFlight has been one of the leaders in understanding that not only must interventions be based on the science of reading, but they also need to be based on the science of learning. Where these two sciences intertwine is the power of WordFlight—in structured, personalized and purposeful practice.

Today’s blog celebrates the important inclusion of practices from the Science of Learning in the new guidelines for adolescent interventions, recently released by The Reading League. This addition speaks to the core of WordFlight and opens the door for further discussion and understanding of how these principles and practices can impact many students who need help.

Hopefully, this blog illuminates how WordFlight works to seamlessly integrate the principles from learning science and the findings from reading science into a structured practice curriculum.The blog is framed around questions that I received this week from principals, coaches and teachers of adolescents as we discussed how the Science of Learning can make the Science of Reading more effective for their students. The questions are highlighted in yellow and are followed by the answers.

We have students coming from elementary grades who have experienced explicit phonics instruction and many have decoding skills; however, they can’t transfer these skills to fluency. We also have students arriving in middle school who have limited decoding skills. How do we know what practice each student needs and is WordFlight a good fit for these students?

WordFlight is designed for students who are not able to reach grade level fluency because they are missing essential foundational skills of decoding and/or automatic word recognition. Students may have gained knowledge of decoding in elementary school from explicit and direct instruction. However, many students, especially those at higher risk, are often still missing automatic word recognition, which is essential to fluency.

WordFlight’s diagnostic is specifically designed to identify each student’s needs and provide them with a personalized curriculum that provides many practice opportunities in varied tasks with immediate feedback.The digital delivery of the systematic, structured and purposeful practice is driven by learning principles that maximize retention, generalization, and automatic retrieval. This personalized practice allows students to fill in gaps in decoding skills and develop automatic word recognition, both essential for fluency.

Why are these learning principles and practices so important to students’ improvement in automatic word recognition and fluency?

WordFlight creates the learning conditions for students to develop decoding skills in a way that allows them to (1) retain, apply, and generalize the “rules” to new words and contexts and (2) automatically retrieve words when they read connected text. How you learn decoding skills really matters to automatic retrieval. The power of the structured practice is driven by these learning principles and is what makes learning stick. Students must be able to retrieve their decoding knowledge automatically in order to read fluently. Did you know that a fluent reader automatically recognizes (or decodes) words in 90 milliseconds?

How do these learning principles align with the Science of Reading?

WordFlight’s curriculum is systematically organized around findings from the Science of Reading and includes:

• an explicit scope and sequence for phonics that systematically transitions from simple to complex when the learner is ready;
• systematic and structured exposure to all language units in both oral and written forms (phonemes, onsets and rimes, syllables, onsets and rimes, single and multi-syllable words, phrases and passages);
• phonological awareness, decoding, encoding, and morphology organized to promote word recognition;
• purposeful, personalized practice that is designed upon learning principles in a novel learning framework that results in better retention, generalization, automatic word recognition and fluency; and
• adaptive progression through lessons so each student receives the structure and content they need to build their foundational literacy skills.

Does WordFlight automatically integrate the Science of Reading and the Science of Learning into one practice experience or are there separate components for each?

WordFlight seamlessly integrates principles from the Science of Learning with the Science of Reading into a system of deliberate, purposeful practice. This system is designed to move the learner from declarative knowledge to structured, personalized practice that yields automatic word recognition and fluency.

WordFlight uses technology to deliver personalized practice for each student that systematically provides structured practice to meet their learning needs. The practices that TRL lists as critical are embedded in the technology-delivered practice as well as the teacher-facilitated small group instruction.

Does WordFlight incorporate the practices from learning science recommended by The Reading League for adolescents in Grades 4-12 who need intervention?

The Reading League recommends the following practices from the Science of Learning adolescents needing intervention.

• Deliberate and purposeful practice
• Retrieval practice
• Spaced and distributed practice
• Cumulative practice
• Interleaved practice
• Age appropriateness
• Recommendations for scheduling, pacing, or intervention time

WordFlight has been in research and development for more than a decade to bring these learning principles and practices to life for so many students who cannot read well. WordFlight is structured to provide deliberate and purposeful practice that is organized around the “varied practice model” to support memory and retrieval.

• This model, based on underlying learning processes, emphasizes systematic and structured variation around a carefully developed scope and sequence that integrates cumulative practice.
• WordFlight’s practice lessons are systematically organized to provide varied practice through multiple tasks and difficulty levels, allowing students to perceive patterns across contexts of known and new content.
• The content is interleaved and distributed in practice sets and students receive immediate feedback and additional support.
• Recommendations are provided for appropriate implementation models in terms of scheduling, pacing and weekly usage and performance goals.

Through this learning process, students learn to discriminate, generalize and apply their skills in many contexts and with new words. WordFlight gives students thousands, if not tens of thousands of targeted experiences, so they can derive the regularities, retain information in long term memory, apply and generalize the “rules” of phonics, and automatically recognize words in connected text. The tasks, content, user interface, and navigation system are designed for adolescents.

Is WordFlight effective? Has it been validated by scientific research?

Evidence of effectiveness is demonstrated by a recent RCT with middle school students, numerous case studies, and peer reviewed research on the application of the learning principles to reading. (link to research page of website).

WordFlight’s personalized, online learning experience, built on more than a decade of research and development, helps move 85% of struggling adolescent students to proficiency with foundational skills within one school year.

Additionally, WordFlight clearly follows The Reading League’s guidelines for technology and independent student practice that is “well designed with accurate content validated by scientific research and aligns with the students’ reading curriculum.”

Are adolescent students motivated to use WordFlight? Do they stay engaged?

Gamification has been integrated into the WordFlight student experience which increases student engagement and motivation to complete lessons. Students earn points, get avatars, achieve goals, and win competitions without sacrificing learning. We developed each task based on the science of how students actually learn to read.

We know that the number of practice exposures necessary for many adolescent learners to get to automatic word recognition is challenging in a traditional teacher-directed setting. WordFlight helps teachers identify the underlying problems holding students back and then address their needs efficiently and effectively, without embarrassment, through independent practice opportunities personalized for each student.

Students also become intrinsically motivated to engage with WordFlight as their reading skills improve and they begin seeing their work transfer to improved fluency, increased comfortability and confidence with reading, and spelling performance. Many students report that they feel better about themselves as learners and readers. Their success increases their persistence to continue the intervention and reinforces their belief that they can become good readers.

Teachers in intermediate and middle school are often not trained to provide instruction in foundational reading skills. Can they effectively use WordFlight and how long does it take to prepare teachers to implement WordFlight?

We understand that teachers of adolescents in upper elementary and middle school grades often are not trained to teach foundational reading skills. Even those who participate in SOR professional learning do not walk away with the skills or experiences to put instructional principles into practice.

Teachers and administrators receive professional development and guidance from WordFlight coaches on establishing the most impactful implementation model for their school environment. This process can be started quickly. Even though students have diverse practice needs, their engagement with WordFlight is similar. They quickly learn how to complete tasks, navigate through the system, and track their points and progression.

Intermediate and middle schools do not have the same daily structure as elementary schools. How is WordFlight implemented to accommodate the schedules of adolescent students?

Teachers have flexibility in how they implement WordFlight, enabling them to adjust how and when students can complete their 60-80 online minutes per week. Our goal is to get started with a shared understanding of each school’s needs that is paired with the right implementation model. Professional learning is then organized to help teachers learn how to monitor and support their students.

Is WordFlight only a digital tool or are there teacher-directed or independent off-line lessons?

Implementation models can also include additional small group work beyond the online program. We know that teacher-facilitated instruction can augment online learning but we also understand that the structures to implement this process can take time. Once students and teachers learn the routines and schedules of online sessions, it is easier to think about teacher-facilitated instruction for targeted students. Often, the second year implementation will include more small-group instruction as teachers are ready to expand their professional learning on the purpose, practices, and tools. The teacher tools include a lesson plan generator that allows teachers to link scheduling needs with student levels along with lesson plans and videos for small group instruction.