Has anyone here do Seeing Stars on their own?

I have not but it was recently recommended that I purchase the visualization and verbalizing from them. Does anyone know what the web address is for Gander Press?

Linamood and others are listed at:
http://64.119.172.210/dyslexia/index/131

Laura,

I started doing Seeing Stars on my own, just using the manual. It is easy to understand and implement. It can be used to supplement PG, LIPS, or any other program that focuses on sound-symbol relationship. I was having success getting my son to visionalize letters but then I realized that he didn’t have the sound-symbol relationship down cold. So I backtracked and have not returned to Seeing Stars, although I incorporate some of the techniques (like air spelling).

I really did not think it was difficult and it was very well laid out.

Beth

Laura,

I just ordered the seeing stars workbook and the visualization and verbalizing manual. This was the phone number I used to order it 1 800 554 1818

My son reads but I realized he was using his auditory strengths and not visualizing the words. This has lead to a problem with writing which I think is more a visual skill. My son learned to read fairly well with phonographix. I am hoping this will fill the piece he is missing. I am glad to find that Beth found it easy.
Sometimes I think so many of us are travelling down parallel roads.

Linda

Linda,

If your son did well with PG, this should be a piece of cake. The concept is really very simple. You’ll like the manual too. It tells the story of how the program was developed—kids who didn’t develop automaticity from doing LIPS.

Beth

Hi Beth,
You said you have backtracked because your son doesn’t have the sound-symbol relationship down cold. What are you using to try and get that “cemented” in his memory?

Hi Linda,
We really are on similar paths!

Let me know what you think of the Seeing Stars work book and the V/V manual when you get it. What made you decide on that combination?

I just called Lindamood, and I am going to send my son for 4 weeks in december to their center. His school will just have to deal. I suspect he will end up doing seeing stars, maybe a little lips. But I plan to do PG with him until then if we can find the time!

Laura,

I spoke to the lindamood bell expert after calling the number on their site. She actually spoke to me for a good hour and helped me to understand the problem. I really am using it more for writing.

She didn’t have the drawing with language program available, yet, but she gave me a bunch of ideas on what they do with that program. It involves talking about spatial relationships. Horizontal lines, vertical lines, slight curves, and deep curves. You teach this terminology then you talk about what they see on the page. It involves looking at a horizontal line and then taking it away and asking them to describe what they saw. She said that seeing stars and VV will also help to grasp this type of symbol imagery to improve writing.

I will let you know how it goes.

Hi Laura,

We used PACE which has lots of kill and drill in it. After that the sound-symbol relationships were pretty firm. There was some visualization exercises in it as well, and I could see that my son really was starting to see letters. I guess because of that, I never went back to Seeing Stars. I think he would benefit from it but I became preoccupied with his lack of automaticity in the advanced code instead.

BTW, I would not recommend PACE for a kid with lots of sensory issues. Despite the gains we made, it was not worth the effort!!! We topped out early in lots of the exercises. He never made it through all the auditory processing exercises.

Beth

Here are some ideas I am familiar with to automate letter-sound relationship.

1. Flashcards with letter on one side and a picture of something starting with the sound on the other. You have student say “f” (letter), f (sound), fish.

2. Make a page of letters in columns. Have student say sounds to the beat of the metronome. Turn speed to what student will be successful with. You want to get to at least 60 bps.

3. Get one of those big exercise balls and have student bounce on it while reciting sounds of lists of sounds. You can put list of letters either on floor or tape to chair.

4. Have student jump on trampoline while reciting lists of sounds. Paste list on wall where student can see.

5. Have student walk up and off of a stool in beat to metronome while
saying sounds. fff-fff (feet one up, and then the other) then fff- ffff again as student steps off stool one foot at a time. Speed of metronome will obviously have to be slower than in 2.

6. LIPS approach of feeling the sounds in the mouth—lip pooper, for example.

For my son, who has sensory-motor issues, body work has been the key to automating anything in memory. We had a Lindamood tutor for a short time this summer—and he could not learn the vowel circle. After I decided this wasn’t going to work, I had him do the vowel circle while bouncing on the ball. He got it almost immed. Obviously, that isn’t typical or Lindamood wouldn’t have so many success stories. But if you are having trouble with automation and more conventional approaches haven’t been entirely successful, give it a try.

He also learned the continents by bouncing on a ball and looking at pictures he had drawn to represent the different continents. This was in third grade. He aced the test and still knew the continents a year latter in fourth grade.

Beth

Beth,

My son also has sensory issues. I am learning how to use these issues to help him deal with stress and to help him blow off steam. My son’s IM instructor is very knowledgable about this and she has shown me what works. We have him do long jumps before IM and it definitely helps. (Yes, we are still doing IM) He jumps with both feet together and grabs her hands. We also do this from a chair. It definitely helps him. I had him do jumps off the stairs before school. Now, he has decided on his own, he wants to go for a bike ride before school. I see this as a sign that he knows what he needs as far as sensory input is concerned.

One of the keys is to not let it go too far. If he jumps on the bed too much he will get hyped up. He needs the right sensory diet. I believe this is our own home grown sensory integration OT.

Linda

Hi Beth,
Thank you for those wonderful ideas! I just printed them up and put them in my thick notebook of articles and ideas. I almost feel like a teacher organizing research materials and remediation ideas and strategy!!!

This morning I met with the developmental optometrist. In going over my son’s testing with them it sounds like a lot of his problems are bilaterality and or cross over (knowing right and left automatically). And visual processing speed.

One thing that was kind of interesting was my son has very good visual sequential memory and very poor dynamic visual sequential memory. (another mind boggling extreme!)

For visual sequential memory they used a test where they show a series of +o++oo on a page, turn the page over, and then have three similar patterns with one correct one on the next page. The patterns get more difficult each time. My son got every one of them right which is quite good (12+ years/99%ile).

But then on a test of dynamic visual sequential memory. This test uses a tachistocope to flash numerical patterns very quickly. On this my son scored very poorly (1%ile).

Another interesting thing is how much visual therapy borrows from occupational therapy and even cognitive training. The doctor talked about some of the exercises they use and many of them are exercises I’ve heard about (“Devloping Your Child For Success,” “The out-Of-Sync Child”, PACE, etc…). Apparently, if I decide to take my son for visual therapy he’ll be spending a lot of time learning right and left!

Beth, did you do PACE or Brain Skills? I recently ordered Audiblox but haven’t received it in the mail yet. I seem to recall someone mentioning that it was stronger with visual processing. I don’t know how true that is. One would assume it was more auditory just from the name.

Thanks again for all your help…..you (and Linda and Karen and everyone else!) are a wealth of information! :-)

Laura,

I think what the test is picking up is slow visual processing. I have seen that test. You can’t remember what you can’t process and it is fast. (I wasn’t very good at it!!) The fact that he did so well at the other memory test suggest that is the kink for him.

That can be improved. We did exercises in PACE that did exactly that and I would expect that Audioblox has something similar. This is one area that my son actually did improve pre and post testing with PACE.

Audioblox is stronger on visual so may be just what you need, although you may get what you need from doing the vision therapy, given what you told me about his approach..

Automatically knowing right and left and crossing the midline are really important to development. Audioblox I am sure has some exercises to work on right and left but don’t know if it goes down to the sensory level of crossing the midline. PACE did not. Good vision therapy, in my opinion, should incorporate OT because the visual system does not work in isolation.

Beth

A good friend of mine enrolled her son (non-LD) in piano specifically to help with midline cross over. What is your thoughts about that?

I had my son in piano for about a year when he was 5. Unfortunately his teacher had to stop teaching because of family obligations and my son decided he wanted to focus on chess so I didn’t seek another teacher.

But, now that he’s older I’ve thought about starting it up again. If it might help with this right/left hand/brain connection that would definitely be more incentive to start looking for a teacher! :-)

I do like that the vision therapist incorporates visual OT (he also uses Brainbuilder!). Another interesting therapeutic exercise he explained to me (this is one he uses sometimes with people who have been in car accidents and have had some brain stem damage that’s affecting their vision — although I think my son could use this one!) Using a few cards with photos on them, a patient will use each card to create a story. After creating the story, they turn the cards over. They then have to retell the story from memory. They begin with retelling the first part of the story (a sentence or two depending on memory) and after that section of it, turn the first card over. Next, continue on with the story turning over each card as that part of the story is completed.

Now I’m going to go cut out some pictures from magazines and glue them on index cards!

I am considering Piano again as well. I have call in to my friends piano teacher. Amazing that we all seem to keep doing the same things. My son also took piano when he was very little. He actually begged for lessons. That was back when we thought he would be academicly gifted. Sheesh. He always had a good ear for music and was fascinated by all things musical.

He didn’t do well. I now understand it was related to his visual motor issues. My son has the same bilateral coordination issues. He has trouble crossing and meeting at the midline. I really believe IM has helped this problem tremendously. One of the ways this manifested was in his catching abilities. I have seen an improvement in this.

He did swimming this summer which is supposed to be an important bilateral motor coordination exercise. He did learn to swim but he never looked coordinated in the water. It will be interesting to see how he does with this after IM.

I was reading about how mixed handedness plays a role in this. If your child had difficulty crossing the midline it is especially important that they choose one hand for dominance. A child with mixed dominance will use his left hand for activities that fall on the left side of his body and his right hand for activities on the right to avoid crossing the midline.

I too had my son in piano age 4-5!!! He begged to take lessons because he wanted to learn to play like the “piano man” at church. When he was three, he just loved to listen to the pianist at church. It was through piano that we discovered his sequencing issues. I really think piano helped him a lot. He did learn to play little tunes which he can still play.

My IM therapist practically begged me to get him to take piano lessons again. I haven’t done it because I just don’t feel there is time for practicing. (we did do keyboarding which she thought was also excellent)> He did talked me into buying him a ukelele that they are learning to play in music. It was $20 and I am hoping it will keep his interest alive.

I am not sure though that piano helps in crossing the midline. It does require integration of both sides of the brain. Studies have shown that the corpus collusium is larger in musicians.

I also had a slt tell me my son’s problems would have been much worse if we had not given him piano lessons for a year and a half. In fact, at the time, that is why we did it. He was getting speech therapy in an early intervention program but I had a sense that his problems were greater (mom’s intutition). I had read of how music lessons helps the brain develop and figured he could use all the help he could get!!

We stopped when we moved to Florida when he was 6 and by the time I had found a piano teacher some months later, it had become obvious that he wasn’t learning to read. So, I only signed up my daughter and started down this road we’re still on.

I asked my son not too long ago if he would want to take piano again. Somewhere in the conversation it came out how hard it had been for him. He wanted to know if it would be easier now!!!

Beth

Beth,

One of the reason’s we are starting piano up again is that since IM my son has started sitting down and playing twinkle twinkle little star on the piano. This was a tune he learned when he was 5 and hadn’t played in years.

Also, I have that big thing sitting in my living room and I want to see it used for more than twinkle twinkle.

I also wonder how much worse he would be without having had those lessons for a year. They were a real struggle for him as well. That was why we stopped. I couldn’t take it any more.

My son at age 6 couldn’t decide which hand to catch the baseball with. It was clear that he didn’t have a dominant hand!!! Now he is clearly right handed but right footed!! Very odd to me who is soooo right sided. But my husband has mixed dominance as well—uses his left hand to write and eat but bats right handed, for example. He is also left footed.

We’ve done jump roping leading with the right foot, and then the left as part of our Neuronet program. He now can do both very well and I think this is a real advantage for soccer. He is one of those kids who is almost equally proficient using either feet.

It was interesting watching him with IM—sometimes he’d lead with his right and sometimes with his left. For awhile I thought he was switching foot dominance but in the end, he still preferred the left.

I’d try the swimming again after IM. My son is now one of the best soccer players on his team. He scored his first goal ever this year!!!

Beth

Beth,
Your son is the best soccer player? That’s awesome!!! And inspiring too!!! Do you think IM helped with this? Maybe I can talk the vision therapist into incorporating IM!!! ;-)

My son is not a great soccer player, though he’s improved greatly. I do think this might be a timing thing.

Congratulations to your son. Knowing his SI issues, that’s something to be very proud of! :-)

Linda,
It is interesting how so many of us are contemplating doing similar things.

One thing about piano, learning it is pretty difficult for almost every kid (and adults too!). It requires enormous work. My non-LD daughter has a great ear for music, but learning to read music took forever!

The way I kept her going with piano through the years is I always stressed “just a little bit” of practice every day. She moved at her own pace, at her own speed, and that was fine. (Although she did have a very good teacher who pushed much harder than me — not anyone I’d use with my son!). And although progress was slow, she did eventually become a very impressive pianist. Just slowly and steadily moving forward can eventually bring a good level of proficiency. One more good thing about this, it taught my daughter a good amount of self-discipline. Just having this daily routine (even if only 20-30 minutes per day), really helped with this.

Another thing about piano. I remember somewhere reading that, if possible, it’s best to start before age 11 because that’s when the brain’s synapses are most receptive to forming these connections. That’s another reason I’m thinking of doing it now. I figure if I can just have him do this for a couple of years that may help with good brain development, self-discipline and possibly midline crossing (and maybe even timing!!!!).

Beth,

I have been told by a few people stories where once the person fully corrected the mixed handedness their learning issues disolved.
My friends Dad had this problem. He had a real problem learning initially. Once this corrected he turned out to be a genius. He was a professor at an Ivy league institution.

You just never know!

Linda