Phonics is the tip of the iceberg when teaching children to read. In order to learn to read they also need good auditory skills.

More than just a phonics program, Fluency builder is based on neuroscientific research about why children with dyslexia struggle. It exercises all the parts of the brain needed for fluent reading, and targets skills like phoneme manipulation and phonological awareness which been been proven to be key to fluent reading.

Phonological awareness is one of the best predictors of reading success. But schools often don't have time to teach this crucial reading skill beyond the early years. Most struggling readers have a problem hearing sounds in words, which is called the phonological deficit. For example they can’t hear that goat contains 3 sounds – g oa t. It’s just one blob of sound to them.

Reading is often taught via phonics. I.e. your child is taught that oa makes the long o sound. And that they should blend g + oa + t to make goat. But if your child can’t hear that goat contains three sounds, then teaching them phonics won't teach them to read.

Fluency Builder contains 50 lessons. Each lesson covers a new sound, plus exercises to improve the phonological deficit, plus an easy or hard reading passage that also teaches new vocabulary.


The Games

Phonics Game

Phonics

Each lesson covers a new sound or spelling.

Listen to how the letters are pronounced. Sort words by sound or spelling, and practice fluent reading of common words.


Phonological Awareness

You need to be able to hear that goat contains 3 sounds in order to blend |g| |oa| |t| into the word goat.

You need to be able to hear that the difference between hop and hope is the middle sound.

Practicing phonological awareness is one of the most important activities to activate the parts of the brain needed for fluent reading.

Sound Sort Game

Reading Passage

Reading Passage

Non-fiction passages have been chosen to appeal to all ages. Each passage needs to be read four times to improve fluency. Twice the first day, and twice the next day.

Any word can be clicked on to hear it spoken out loud. This allows the passage to contain harder content.


The Science

Fluency Builder improves the Phonological Deficit.

Reading is done in the brain. But which parts? MRI scans show that dyslexic people use different parts of the brain to read than non-dyslexic people do.

Numerous scientific studies have proven brain plasticity – that the brain can be changed by practising and repeating tasks.

MRI scans have found differences in the brain between people with and without dyslexia.


Scientific studies into children with dyslexia have proven that repeating activities that activate the part of the brain that non-dyslexics use when reading, changes their brain so that they read more like a non-dyslexic person does.

Fluency Builder contains activities which have been proven to activate the parts of the brain needed to read fluently. These activities are: phonological awareness, rapid automatic naming, phoneme manipulation, segmenting, auditory discrimination and morpheme mapping.

10 minutes a day

All it takes is 10 minutes a day to improve your reading speed, accuracy and comprehension.

Fluency Builder is the first step in helping your child overcome dyslexia.

The programs are online and can be accessed from any computer. Windows, Mac and tablet.