LindaMood Bell questions...

This is a definitely good option. Search for the research that shows that LMB changes the brain pattern in dyslexics as demonstrated on brain scans.
It changes their brain to cause them to use the areas of their brain more like a non dyslexic.

My son did 4 weeks of 4 hours/day this past winter. It was all we could squeeze into his winter break and it made a huge difference in his reading. He went into LMB having broken most of the code so they didn’t do Lips with him. Instead they jumped to Seeing Stars which totally cemented his ability to decode, and he also can now decode most multisyllabic words. His still has alot of trouble with fluency, but SS got him over the hump of learning to read. I’d do it again in a heart beat.

The cost was approx. $90/hour, which for us was less than we have been paying a tutor. The intensity of the program is part of why it works so it was worth it to us to spend the money all at once like that. Good luck.

What level was he reading at before, and what level now? How did it help with written expression and spelling? I think to expect parents to spend several hundred or thousands of dollars on this product is unrealistic; I also think it serves the cream of the crop, ie kids who are bright, have motivated, well to do parents and already have implemented some remediation. I really wonder if the results and pace of progress “hold up” over time.

How old is your son? I’m considering 3 1hr/week sessions for my 7 year old this summer. I’m really concerned about intensity for him, though I know this very part-time way can take a very long time.

I now know about a dozen or so kids who’ve gone through the LMB program. Of these, the oldest are now in 8th grade. They’d both attended an LMB regional center during 2nd grade. In both cases, these kids maintained the gains they’d experienced (as did the other 10) Did they no longer need private tutoring? One continues to work with a tutor, the other no longer needed one after LMB.

That’s pretty true with the rest of the kids. In my experience, and I’ve worked as a tutor to 4 of them, continued support is still a necessity. Most importantly, immediately following LMB, these kids needed daily fluency practice. LMB doesn’t address that need. And instead of swimming upstream as the student falls further and further behind his or her classmates, I’ve been able to work with them on grade level material, breaking down instructions, teaching them ways to study, strategies for test-taking, etc. I’ve helped them with their writing.

Its difficult to answer your first question because the one thing I can’t endorse is their testing methods. They use the same test in their before and after testing, and I do feel it skewed the test results somewhat. In general he was reading (according to the Gray oral reading test) at an extremely slow rate, about 1 grade below grade level accuracy, with above grade level comprehension. That doesn’t sound so terrible but take my word for it - he was not literate. He couldn’t put it together to read. After Seeing Stars he improved in all of these areas, with the most noticeable difference being in his accuracy. I saw some immediate improvement in spelling. They didn’t work on written expression or comprehension. He still won’t read for pleasure, but he can read age appropriate material albeit very slowly.

The improvement was significant, and observable, not just by me, but also by the reading specialist at school and his tutor. Nothing else we have done has produced a jump in his skills like this did - which I attribute to the intensity. He did 68 hours of work in 4 weeks. Think about it - it would take 34 weeks of seeing his tutor 2hours/week to acheive the same amount of work.

And the results have stuck. Its been 4 months since he finished. We haven’t seen any major changes since then, but the improvements stayed, and definitely improved his sense of confidence and proved that with the right instruction he can make progress. It convinced me that he will thrive in a special school next year.

I also can’t complain about the cost. As I said, it was less per hour than what tutors get in my area of the country. The session I observed wasn’t magical - it was just a multisensory way of teaching reading - totally compatible with the OG instruction he had received and even the PG work I had done with him.

Having said all that - LMB is just one tool that we have used and its not meant to address every issue. But believe me, the kids we saw their were not “cream of the crop” and several had major major developmental issues.

In other words Joan, it sounds like it gave them a boost so you could get onto some of the higher level skills. That’s exactly what it did for us as I said in my next post…

Amy,
My son was 8 .5 when he went. The youngest kids were about 7, and some were much older. They all work for an hour and then take a break together, which my son enjoyed. Much more of a feeling of “we’re all in this together” then him just working alone with his tutor. Most of the kids were boys and they traded Yu-gi-oh cards or played gameboy on the break.

But you have to gauge your own child. My son is very compliant when it comes to therapy. The last 2 weeks of his LMB work he actually went to school for a few hours and then did 4 hours of LMB. He was pretty pooped by the end. It was a grueling but productive experience for him - and convinced him that switching schools for next year was the right decision. If we weren’t moving him to a special school we would definitely be doing more LMB this summer.

Good luck!!!

I think that any program applied at 20plus hours a week for several weeks or months would have similar results; my argument is with the cost…several hundreds or thousands of dollars are flowing into this company …they need double blind studies, or studies where students were assigned to various groups of reading therapy, then tested independently.

Then what about all of those who failed with reading recovery. Reading recovery is even more intensive than LMB.

My son received intensive training at both sylvan and in school and did not learn to read until he got structured phonemic awareness training.

Please read, “Why Our Children Can’t Read and What We Can Do About It,”

All of your questions are answered there. There are numerous double blind studies. Reading has been studied more than anything else in education.
The results are pretty clear.

Not of LMB with 1998 revenues of $11 million….where does all the money go????

I think there is no doubt that LMB is a major profit making business. I understand they pay their tutors a fraction of what they charge parents and make the tutors sign agreements not to use their training for some period of time afterwards, if they should leave LMB employment. I too have some ethical issues with this….I basically find for-profit enterprises in education difficult to swallow.

We live near a regional center (which I have not used because my son has a difficult time with intensive work) but I know people who have. It seems to work for many kids when other things have not. I think effectiveness is a very different issue than whether you agree with the way they run their for-profit business.

Beth

I disagree.
After watching infomercials for hooked on phonics for years I am glad that someone is creating a successful business around a program that actually works.

I wish the PG people would get there act together and do a better with marketing. I wish they were more successful because more success would mean they would be more available.

Do we want to get into how much schools spend on reading recovery?

My school alone is spending several hundred thousand dollars a year on RR. That is my money, which is really offensive.

At least those who don’t want to go to an LMB clinic don’t have to.

We agree they are effective but disagree on whether the business model they are using is appropriate.

I just wanted to point out that there are two different issues here.

One is whether it works.

Two is whether you agree with the business aspects of how they are running the clinics.

I understand that LIPS used to be called ADD and was a pretty low profile program (changed names for obvious reasons). It was a family operation and a new generation made it much more business like.

Beth

Attend your school committee mtgs and push for something more effective; our schools use Wilson, far less expensive than LMB. I repeat, where does the money go, the tutors are paid far less than teachers at your local schools. Buyer beware.

My friend’s son is going to a wilson tutor and it is costing her around 15 thousand a year for twice a week tutoring.
They say it will take 3 years.

Her child is in kindergarten.
Wilson is not cheaper than LMB where I live.

I have presented all the reading research to the school. The head of curriculum was extremely condesending.

He has a PHD and believes he knows best.
The school guidance counselor called reading recover, “Like a cult.”

SAR, I’ve always appreciated your advise and thoughtful comments so I’m puzzled as to why you are so negative about LMB.

Lindamood-Bell isn’t a philanthropic organization, it clearly is a business, and I don’t doubt that its owners wish to make money. By the way, my son’s tutor also teaches reading for a living and I don’t begrudge her her $125/ hour. I’ll pay for what works, and the scientific evidence, as well as the antecdotal evidence of alot of parents is what sent us there in the first place. If LMB priced themselves out of the market I wouldn’t have gone, but their rates were comparable with what my other alternatives were at the time.

The buyer has to beware when someone makes false claims and doesn’t deliver. With few exceptions the parents on this board have been happy with the results their children have gained at LMB.

I’m an economist by training, and unless someone can show me that the lindamood bell tutors are somehow being taken advantage of then I have no problem with the business model. The tutors I met were all lovely college grads, on their way to other careers. They didn’t seem unhappy to be there at all.

Likewise, I’m not going to complain about paying a fair price for a service that was delivered efficiently and with good quality. It was my decision after all to buy their services.

If we are going to get angry it shouldn’t be at someone with a solution. It should be with the educational system that fails our children in the first place.

They are also getting paid with training that will allow them make a nice income as a LMB tutor on their own if they choose.

I understand from a reliable source that they pay the tutors about $25 an hour and charge parents about three times that. I don’t know how you define taking advantage of…..seems to me that is a pretty big profit margin.

But I also agree….the real problem is the schools that fail to implement sound teaching methods. If they did, there wouldn’t be such a big “niche” for companies to fill.

Beth

HI, haven’t been on here in awhile, but my son did LMB with a tutor we trained last year when 6. He did 4 hours a day 5 days a week for about 6 weeks and ate it up. You might start at the slow parttime pace and see how he does. But the more intensive it is- the faster he will get to a place whre HE’LL see results. And that was what made the difference for my guy.When learning is so slow and a hard slog it’s hard to keep motivated for these little guys but if it works for them you might find he’s more motivated than he’s ever been before. It wasn’t just slogging thru because with LIPS my guy was really learning and could do things every day he couldn’t do the day before. After spending a winter on as intense a course as LMB with almost no results he was exhilerated, relieved, intent on learning with LIPS. I can verify that it is not true any program applied intensively will work as well. The same tutor spent 6 months trying various methods with my son and the only result was that about 75% of the time he could recognize the letters of the alphabet. He could not read two letter words. He’s now had a full year of 2-4 hours day tutoring with Seeing Stars and he’s reading at a 3rd grade level. His spelling is probably about 2nd. His writing has improved in the last 6 months to where it’s about at grade level. The only difference in last winter and this is the program. The time spent in one on one tuition and the tutor remain the same. That said we also found he had a focusing problem and went to a vision develoment expert who prescribed glasses for this.That improved his speed and accuracy when reading. The decoding was there but not the fluency nad the glasses improved that by about 100%.

Your son’s tutor gets $125 an hour???? I have forgotten where you are, but it must be in the highest cost of living area in the US. Wow, I am underpaid!

Janis

Well, what I mean is that they aren’t forced to work there in bad conditions, or for an unfair wage. I don’t think $25/hour is a bad wage for a recent college grad - it beats working at the Gap, or waiting tables. I don’t mean to be argumentative, but if they work a full time schedule (as many did when I was there) they are certainly making more money than the assistant teachers at my kid’s school.

LMB, like any other company in this world, is going to pay what it has to to retain good employees, and no more. Likewise, they will charge as much as they can . If they try to charge too much, parents won’t pay. Its supply and demand and I have no philosophical problem with that. (And I am actually a big fat liberal!!)

Listen, I didn’t set out to be the defender of Lindamood Bell, but I am happy with the results, and would gladly spend the money again. And from a business perspective I don’t have a problem with someone making a big profit if they really do what they say they are going to do.

My son has a big problem with fluency, and has just started wearing reading glasses and doing vision therapy. So I was wondering if your son did therapy, or did he just get glasses? and just curious, what did he need glasses for? (farsighted?)

Yup, and $125 isn’t the highest I’ve paid. Last years tutor got $150. She worked out of her small 2 bedroom apartment that probably cost her $4000 a month to rent, so you can see how its all relative. Despite a recent NY times article stating that NYC isn’t the most expensive place to live, it still ranks up there. So don’t feel bad - our professionals may make more , but it costs more to live here.

In that case, I may actually do better than that tutor! Our cost of livign is significantly lower than that! Thanks.

Janis

Yeah, I charge way too little (30 Canadian, which is a drop in the bucket!); trying to build up a clientele and get the business going, and also to be available to ordinary folks.
But then I live in the handyman’s special outside the city and my mortgage payment is under 400 Canadian… if only I could figure out how to pay the electricity bill after the -22F temperatures last winter … and the plasterer . .

My problem is that I use research based methods that work but don’t have a brand name, so it’s hard to convince people it’s worth money without a shiny program package — I often think of making up a whole bunch of fancy stuff and a special name to impress them, and then do the same tried-and true thing anyway.
Got any suggestions for the flashy marketing?

Isn’t that the truth? Its all relative…

Seriously, I wouldn’t respond to an individual with a flashy marketing plan. There was one neuropsych. I spoke to that has a remediation center, complete with brochures. I was looking for a tutor for my son - and wanted someone who could develop a personal relationship with him and someone who could customize their approach. We ended up going elsewhere.

I think there is a distinction to be made between what you get from a Lindamood vs. a tutor. LMB is like Mcdonalds - its a franchise operation with a few things on the menu that they can cook up very consistently. For us , it was effective. Our tutoring relationship is much more like having a personal chef.

Yes, I would like to know the answer to this too.

I have a friend whose son did great with the glasses but he already had his other vision issues remediated.

We have been through 2 sets of glasses (one from another doctor) and my son does not like to wear them. The doctor wants to try a third time. He insists the glasses are very important to promote binocular vision. He said the glasses bother him now that his eyes can do some of the work on their own.

I would also like to know if you both have bifocals for your son or just a regular lense.

Victoria,

You need to network with other professionals that provide complimentary services. The dev optometrist takes care of the vision issue but he needs someone to provide the phonics piece. If you set up an arrangement of mutual referrals you would see more traffic.
You should also market yourself to the neuropsychs who do the testing. They make the recommendations. If you become the ‘go to’ tutor for even one neuropsych, you could have your hands full.
Also, don’t sell yourself short. If you charge too little people tend to wonder why if your services are so good you are not charging more. Sometimes people will be more inclined to go to the person who charges more. It is a weird phenomena. You have to know your market. Find out what others are charging.
Another marketing tip is to have a clear message. If you give details about specific aspects of you tutoring like (help for dysgraphia through the use of yada yada yada ) that mom of the dysgraphic child will take a second look.

It really is all about marketing. There is no shame in having a good business sense as the LMB people do. I do like to see those who provide good services become the successful ones.

It really does come down to networking and marketing.

Can you tell I am an avid reader of Entreprenuer magazine;)?

Victoria,
I agree with Linda about charging more—a lot of people have a “you get what you pay for” mentality. Also, they will value your tutoring more if there is an extra squeeze on their wallet—this subtly creates a higher commitment to having your product work for them. You can always charge below list for people you know can’t afford the higher rates or even, like a lawyer, take on pro bono cases financed by the wealthy clients. (But don’t literally charge nothing—people do not value free products.)

Linda F. and Karen N. have made good suggestions. I would also suggest getting in contact with schools to let them know about your services. You would not believe how hard it is to get any tutoring referrals at all from schools, even when they recommend that parents get one for their kids.

All I was trying to do was separate out effectiveness from the cost….SAR seemed to think because they charged a lot, it was a scam. I don’t agree with that assessment. Personally I’d rather have the tutor getting a lot more of the money than the company. But that has nothing to do with whether it works. I think it does for many kids.

Beth

Victoria,

A few years ago I taught a course on power and influence. One of the books we read (Ciadini–I think is how it is spelled) has a chapter that talks about a woman who had a gift shop in the SW where she sold torquoise jewlery. Noone was buying it so she told her sales person to make it half off. Well, the sales person doubled the price instead and suddenly it was selling like wild fire. Price=value.

I would find out what people charge in your area. Here it is about $40-50 for tutoring. Therapy runs about $70. Personally, I feel like someone is trying to advantage of me if they charge too much more than that but if it is too much less, I wonder if they are any good. If your rates are too low, and I suspect they are, you may get people thinking that you can’t be good or you’d charge more.

Beth

and both were ineffective with our child!!! But it had to do with implementation probably more than the acutal program. How they thought they can be effective using a single program in a group setting, all kids of which were at completely different ends of spectrum is beyond me. And only doing the program 1x per week, 30min at a time(whole group included), no homework and no classroom reinforcment (the classroom uses whole language approach). Waste of everyone’s time in my opinion.

If the program isn’t working, it potentially could be who/how they are implementing??

I appreciate all the kind thoughts and suggestions.

I’ve been doing this for a while, and there are several issues.

One is that prices vary *wildly*, with no apparently rational basis. The private center that operates more or less like Sylvan, maybe a little more efficiently, charges about 50 Canadian. The lady who sort of does Lindamood Bell — she does the parts she likes and not the ones she doesn’t, so the kids get a lot of benefit but not all of it — charges 25 Canadian. The college students give “peer tutoring” for free. Of course nothing is what it’s usually worth, but people don’t know that until it’s failed. Other college/university people offer tutoring anywhere from 10 to 40. The prices are simply all over the shop. So when people call and ask a price, one says “Wow! That’s really reasonable!” and the next says “No thanks”. I am hoping that, after I build up a clientele and word of mouth gets going better, I can raise prices somewhat.
I do have trouble making people believe that it is worth it, again because they see the flash from Hooked On Phonics and Sylvan and all those kinds of things, and it’s hard to convince them that an old car full of books and a chubby blonde lady can be more impressive.

Then I get the bargainers. They call and try to chip away at the price. I used to try to help, thinking people couldn’t afford it, but have learned that some people just want everything on the cheap and value it as such. So I’ve set up a strictly fixed-price basis, same for everyone. I tell potential clients up front that I need food and a roof too. With a fixed price, even if low, I can honestly stick to it.
A variable price for low incomes would make a lot of sense,. but I don’t have the resources to check out other people’s real incomes. Oddly enough, I’m getting a lot of kids with divorced parents this year. That makes their finances even more complex, and I can’t really know.

Yes, I did try doing volunteer tutoring, once for the local schools, once for kids in the town, and once for adult literacy. One school and teacher were very appreciative and nice and took all the help I could give; my daughter’s school and teacher treated us like interferences. The mother of the kids referred by the town social services and the adult literacy student found all sorts of reasons why they could never get to tutoring. I may do some more another time when I’m free, but won’t hold my breath for people to value it.

I agree that too much is too much. I don’t want to go the Sylvan route with more going on advertising than on actual teaching. But I do need a way to look serious and professional and businesslike without overdoing. I want to set up a really good web page but am not doing well on getting started — partly my fault and partly nightmares with getting help from ISP’s.

You’re absolutely on target. 30 minutes once a week with no homework or review is a joke. A total waste of time and money.

Whenever somebody says “phonics didn’t work”, I first look for bad/non implementation.

One reason I liked this guy is that he didn’t reccommend long course of expensive treatments. He has a website. Dr. Pirotte in Wichita, Ks. He said let’s try the glasses it’ll help the muscles which aren’t quite strong enough to hold the letters still. If that doesn’t work we’ll go on from there. Well, the first month we didn’t use them enough really. My husband picked up the glasses with son and forgot to tell tutor and I the instructions how to use. Like not reading when book flat on desk-which of course we’d been doing. Once he came up with the advice, and son got used to the bifocal effect he improved quickly. Now there is such a marked difference when he forgets to wear. When I hear him stalling on words-he reads to little brother a lot- I check and sure enough no glasses.

They reccommended bifocals because since only for reading kids don’t need to take off when looking around and doing other things. However, I’m not sure I wouldn’t just get regular lenses next time. Though he’s used to the bifocals for reading now he still complains about them.

Hi Victoria:

My tutor in Vancouver (orton-gillingham/multi-sensory) charges $35 per hour and picks up my son and takes him to school too! We were her first clients, and she has proved to be nothing short of a saint. Many of my friends think that I am crazy for spending this..they hire students for a fraction of this.
So, for us cheaper Canadians, you are in the ball park. My tutor is getting most of her business through word of mouth, and she keeps her students. She has prepared a simple business card that I have seen at the local Family Resource Centre (advocacy centre/where they train tutors). She is also very involved in the local Learning Disability Association.
Victoria, you’ve sent me in the right direction before, so I hope that you stick with it!!! By the way, I do believe that us Canadians often are suspicious at anything that looks too fancy or too packaged.

I think it depends on what your child needs. For a late bloomer who just needs practice a college student may be fine. My child is LD and needs real professional help. Only someone with the proper background (ie graduate work in reading disabilities and familiarity with Orton) was going to make us feel comfortable.

Just an aside since you have seen dramatic improvement in reading accuracy:

You may want to consider Great Leaps which we just purchased for my 12 year old son. It is specifically designed to improve fluency. My son is very motivated by the program and one of the beauties of it is that you can use it at home and it only takes about five to six minutes a day. It costs about $70 for the whole middle school program. Plus they send you two research based articles when you order it.

I have Great Leaps, and plan to do it again this summer. We gave it a shot last summer, but his decoding was so labored that it was hard to see any effect. Its more appropriate now. Apparently his tutor has seen improvements in his fluency recently - I haven’t noticed as much. We plan to discontinue all tutoring etc this summer to give the kid a break, but I will do Great Leaps with him precisely because it is so easy to do, and I believe the research.

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I do the business-card thing. It’s more a mini-poster than a business card. I’ve picked up one or two people that way but not many. I also get a few people through community weekly newspapers and one or two from the college bulletin board. Recently, however, I’ve had really excellent response from a fairly inexpensive ad on a website called “toutMontreal.com” (everythingMontreal). So I want to extend website advertising because it does seem to be the way things are going. Slowly but surely building that clientele.

By the way, some people have advised contacting schools. I have had zero luck with that in a couple of different places. In fact, some schools have told me that they will not and cannot recommend a tutor outside the school system. Legal worries, I guess.

Victoria,
All of the tutors recommended at my son’s school are private, but that may be because he attends a private school to begin with. I’d check that out - a relationship with one in-school reading specialist could generate alot of business for you. My son’s tutor sees mostly kids from his school. The teachers aren’t encouraged to do the tutoring themselves. (I think the administration thinks it looks unseemly to ask parents to pay their teachers for tutoring on top of the tuition we already pay!)

[quote=Anonymous]Is this program really as great as I read/hear? … Suzi[/quote]

Yes, the Lindamood-Bell programs are as great as you hear. They are “process-based” instruction, which strengthen the underlying sensory-cognitive functions for reading, comprehension, math, critical thinking and overall learning.

This approach cannot even be compared to other models which focus on content rather than process.

As an independent clinician/consultant trained in the programs, I have seen their dramatic affect on countless students.

Hi,

The rumors about Lindamood Bell are true. They charge (at least in NY) $125/hour and pay their clinicians $15/hour. I know someone who worked there for more than 5 years and was 2 steps above clinician, and she still only made $17/hour.

I worked there, so I know. I have also been a special ed teacher for over 20 years. And, I sent my own kids there and saw great results with them.

Most of their clinicians are in college, some just graduated from high school. They get 2 days of training in each program and then you pay $125 as they learn the program.

That being said, there is quite a bit of oversight, but if you are taking your kids early in the summer, most of the clinicians are new and inexperienced, though some are year-round or returning.

The program works wonders. Part of that is because the kids are working 4 hours, 5 days a week, for multiple weeks. Almost anything done that intensively will show progress. But Lindamood Bell absolutely does get through where other systems don’t.

I am happy to answer any questions anyone might have about the programs.
[Modified by: Anon12 on June 14, 2013 03:43 PM]

Most people, even those who do not have or have not been diagnosed with LD still find Math difficult. I had difficulties in Math back in school, and unfortunately, I passed this on to my son. Since I’m really not the best person to help him in his Algebra class, I decided that getting outside help from a reliable tutoring agency was our best option. We were able to find an agency for Vancouver tutors (http://mygradebooster.com/) who offer private, in-home Math tutorial and my son is doing better. I think that paying a tutor is a great investment.