PG VS LB

We have used both. I certainly would try PG first because it works with most kids and it is cheaper. You can do it yourself using the book Reading Reflex or hire a tutor. You really need to hire a tutor for LIPS unless you attend their classes. LIPS is more multisensory and involves feeling the sounds in your mouth. It was designed for kids with auditory processing problems. LMB also has another program called Seeing Stars that is very visually oriented, more so than how PG is generally taught. Some kids who don’t respond well to PG need the more multisensory approach of LMB.

My experience—my son learned to read using PG. At one point, when I was frustrated that he still had not caught up, I hired a LIPS tutor. It did not work well for us. My son has small motor issues and he did not gain additional information from feeling the sounds in his mouth. Another tutor of his told me it was designed for a different kind of kid than him.

Beth

I did PG with my son at the end of first grade. He went from a child who could not tell you what the first sound in ‘ig’was to a child that could read simple words after only a week or two.

He recieved intensive reading recovery based intervention at school and it just didn’t work. One of the teachers from the school also tutored him but it didn’t work. We also tried sylvan which was also a failure for him.

My son still reads well. He can now read “Little House on the Prarie”books with very few errors and he is in 3rd grade. He has always had very good listening comprehension (could listen to books on tape for hours and tell you everything about the story) and his reading comprehension is also very good. He did not need specific instruction to improve his comprehension.

My son’s weakness after acquiring reading skills was still in spelling and writing in complete sentences. When you read his stories they are well though out with a frst paragraph introduction right down to the last paragraph summary but it doesn’t look very good. Actually it can be quite unreadable. His thoughts seem to move faster than his ability to get things down on the page even though I don’t really think he has a problem with dysgraphia.
LMB has a program called seeing stars that addresses symbol imagery. I believe this is his problem. He spells phoneticly because he does not hold a picture of the word in his brain. He couldn’t seperate grate from great even though he has seen great many times. I worked on his symbol imagery with a little seeing stars and other techniques I found elsewhere that improve this type of visualization.
My son also has visual tracking issues which lead to a problem for him with what he describes as moving print and headaches. He doesn’t like to read and really can’t read for prolonged periods of time. We are doing exercises to improve these issues as well.

PG really changed alot of things for him. It made a very big difference in his life and I was very glad I did it with him. I don’t have specific experience with the LMB lips program.

Since the term LD covers a very, very broad spectrum of conditions, you might be sure to ask the parents of the particular things their children have in their diagnosis “bundle.” This way, you have the start of an idea about how their child matches and does not match you child.

Have fun!

My son has more diagnoses than Linda’s—which is probably why he still doesn’t read on grade level, despite years of intervention. Regardless, my basic advice of trying PG first stands. It is cheaper and faster—when it works. That said, kids with dyspraxia like mine may not benefit as much from LMB as others.

Beth

Here are my thoughts for what they are worth:

I started doing PG with my son about 3 months ago about 2-3 times per week- not that intensively. He also receives OG based tutoring 2X /week. Sometime in the last few months he really learned to decode and I can’t help but think the PG work I did with him helped get him there. He seemed to find it complementary to the other instruction he’s received.

We just had him evaluated by an LMB clinic and I will be getting the results this friday. We plan to do a 4 week intensive program with them that I suspect will be a little Lips and mostly seeing stars, because I think he knows most of the code, doesn’t have auditory processing problems ( I think - will be interesting to hear what they say about this!!) . Our logic is that its more about gaining automaticity and fluency for him, and that an individual tutor or mom can’t possibly deliver the intensity that LMB can. To me that’s the point of going there - they are set up to do it 4-6 hours per day. And we want to cram as much into his winter break as possible.!

Parent of a 15 year old, gifted and LD, diagnosed with severe rote auditory processing deficits. His memory for auditory information is almost perfect, but those letters mean very little. There are visual and motor issues, too. He has done both LB and PG with very experienced teachers. Initial gains look good, but over the long haul and coping with grade level work - reading and spelling are just not automatic enough. I like PG for its speed and simplicity and I would agree that it is a good place to start. To really do something different and bring in the sensory modality, I recommend LB. I am now teaching LB and I really see kids connecting with the method. If I could talk my teen into an intensive - I’d go back to LB. His interest has waned over years of effort. So…

Karen,

I will be very interested to hear what they say about his current needs now that he knows the code. Let us know.

Thanks,

Linda

It will be interesting also to see if he could demonstrate that he knows the code. I’m aware that what he can do at home doesn’t carry over completely to school or even his tutors office. I heard him working with her yesterday and it was much worse than how I hear him read at home. He’s feeling alot of anxiety about his reading and possibly changing schools lately.

We also get some feedback from the LD school we are interested in next week. They observed and tested him over an 8 hour period so that will also be very valuable.

Only experience is with LMB. Daughter is gifted, with VPD, APD, ADD, SI, motor planning (dyspraxia), dygraphia, (you name it) (Basically dyslexic)

In 3 weeks she was trying to sound out the word Ford off the back of a pickup truck. (Was I embarrassed that I never knew she couldn’t do this!)

She just “graduated” after 2 yrs of 2x/wkly. Still has trouble with long multisyllable words though reading comprehension is excellent (Never was a problem). I plan to return to some remediation during the Summer. Have even heard - is it OG that is good for the multisyllable? Reading level 5th grade for letter word identification (she’s in 4th). (Comprehension much higher)

Don’t know anything about the PG.

Leah, you may want to give PG a shot for the multisyllabic words. I’m doing some of that work with my son at home and he’s definitely getting it. He’s like your daughter but about 1-2 years behind in his remediation. He’s had some OG remediation too and again is finding the PG stuff we do at home compatible with what he’s been taught at school and by his tutor. (for example when we break down a word into chunks he sometimes puts his hand under his jaw to feel the beat of the syllables. He got that from somwhere - not me!)

We did LMB a few years ago…and the remediation benefits were promptly never supported by the teaching processes the school followed. They did not teach much phonics and did not reference the LMB skills etc. So perhaps the issue is how much the school staff will help reinforce the reading program. Recent test show no improvement and a drop off of what was learned in a three month process. Very frustrating.

Phil,

You point to a reason I have always liked PG. When I see my son’s segmenting falling off I can go back to the PG book and reteach or just do some of the exercises I have committed to memory when he does his spelling words. We had the same problem. I thought the school didn’t really teach this skill so if I didn’t keep at it he would lose some of what he learned. They pushed memorization of word lists which I felt was counterproductive. It was unfair for me to insist that he sound out and them to teach him to look at and memorize the whole word.