Every 6th grade on Tilst Skole placed above the country average after taking the courses
Tilst Skole in the municipality of Aarhus is one out of 500 Danish schools that have been using FrontRead with great success. Study counsellor Janne Møller Nielsen is happy to share her experiences of how the program works and what its done for her students.
Janne had one of the grades herself, a 6th grade, during a course. By the first middle test, she was able to determine that her students had improved from their starting point. The result that she was able to show at the end of the course was impressive.
Source: Læringsvejleder Janne Møller Nielsen, Tilst Skole, Aarhus Municipality (2016)
”At the start, 35% of our class had less than 120 words per minute. At the final test that result was down to 13%,” Janne Møller Nielsen said. ”Those 13 % make up three students in class and two of those have been diagnosed as dyslexic. I haven’t seen results like this before on an entire class.”
At Tilst Skole they have tried other methods before to increase their reading fluidity. Both special reading cards to prevent the reader from jumping in the text and the so called 5-5-5 method, where the student is encouraged to read at varying speeds with a five-minute interval to increase their fluidity. But the exercises have not always had the desired effect.
”I’ve had students that have said that when they try some of the other exercises, they have this voice in their head that keeps urging them to go faster, and that has affected their reading fluidity,” Janne said. And that is not something she has experienced with Frontread. Some students still struggle, but every one of them improved by the end of the course. Some even a lot.
Source: Læringsvejleder Janne Møller Nielsen, Tilst Skole, Aarhus Municipality (2016)
”From the 23 students in the class, ten of them (44%) read more than 200 words per minute after training with FrontRead. Only one student could do that when we began.”
Even though the students may have experienced it as hard training, Janne Møller Nielsen feels that perseverance rewards itself.
”After we finished with FrontRead we took the obligatory reading test for text comprehension. The countries average comprehension for 6th grade is 96,4%. Every student in our class placed above that. ”
The good results mean that Tilst Skole wish to include FrontRead as a more permanent part of the schedule looking forward.
”We now plan to use it systematically on the school by making it mandatory for every 6th grade and above to go through a course. I don’t know anyone else that works like this – so it will be new and exciting.”
Do you wish to perform like Tilst did?
