Read America Clinic in Orlando

Lil, I think this is just wonderful news! Thanks for the post and email! We may make that trip next summer if we aren’t where we need to be. It’s very encouraging to hear that it was successful!

Janis

Now, more good news. :-) I have already seen tremendous gains for my son this school year (we are only four days into it).

He brought two math worksheets home that had word problems associated with graphs. LAST year, he would answer most of the questions incorrectly, after much prompting from me to get his homework done (he didn’t want my help). Then when I checked his answers, most of them were wrong because he didn’t understand the questions. We had many tears and recriminations when I made him go back through it with me. THIS year, he did the two worksheets in less than 10 minutes, and they were 100% correct - because he could finally read the questions and understand what they were asking.

He has his first spelling test on Friday. LAST year he did well on spelling because it was multiple choice (?). The last few weeks of school, spelling finally went to writing a list of words, and all those tests he failed, even after we spent about 30 minutes a night working with him starting on Monday. THIS year, we reviewed his spelling words per the Phono-Graphix method. He missed a few of them the first go through, but the second time around he got them all 100% correct with no prompting. We spent about a total of about 15 minutes for the week, not two hours with him still not understanding. Of course, it IS the first week of school, and the spelling words weren’t hard. :-) Time will tell.

There are other benefits to his new found confidence. He is less anxious about his school work. He wants to do his homework when he gets home. We have not had a melt-down yet. He even stands up straighter, and looks people in the eye more. His handshake is firmer. He even wears his clothes better, somehow.

Lil

Improvement in reading skills carries over to everything. That is great, Lil!

Janis

Lil,

I filled out a form to have REad America contact me about going in December but noone has got back to me. Have you had trouble with that?

Beth

I think it took Linda and I about two or three weeks to finally catch up with each other. Did you try phoning? That’s how I made my first contact. Do you have their 800 number? US 800-732-3868

Lil

BTW, my son actually gave me the synopsis of the beginning of a book today THAT HE STARTED READING ON HIS OWN, UNKNOWN TO ME! I’ve asked him to tell me about what he has read before, and it has never happened, or at least not in an understandable fashion with a lot of uncomfortable prompting. He even said “the bombs were dropped from Malaysia” - and that word tripped off his tongue like he said it everyday. I was SO impressed! Yet another first! :-)

Be careful with Phonographix for dyslexic children who have trouble with sight words.

I live near the Read America clinic in Orlando. We did 18 sessions there and my son made no improvement. He was crying and completely discouraged. The reason: he could not remember the language patterns.
The program confused him.

He needed to develop symbol imagery. He completed Seeing Stars at the Lindamood Bell clinic. He now gets A’s in spelling at grade level.

He also needed the phonics rules and Lindamood Bell did a wonderful job of teaching him all the rules — they used pictures such as a “vowel train”. He did some of their Lips program.

I don’t want to talk badly about the Read America clinic, but the program definitely is not intense enough for a “double deficit” dyslexic.

I was angered at the end of 18 sessions, when they told me to go to vision therapy and we had already done that.

My son does not have the orthographic processing in place very well. We’ve done some Seeing Stars at home. I tried a Lindamood tutor—speech and language therapist. The later was a disaster. She misread my son completely. He had a grade level sight vocabulary, despite his deficits, so she thought he just had to be taught decoding. Simple job. But he did not benefit at all from feeling the sounds in his mouth. He has some small motor issues and it became just another layer of memory. She told me he had learned helplessness!! I don’t think she knew how to teach him.

He did a PG intensive three years ago and it helped. Nothing has been a magic cure for him, however. We live near a Lindamood center and I think more Seeing Stars would help him. But he really doesn’t have decoding down cold so he’d probably be taught LIPS too. And my experience with LIPS was not very good.

Beth

My son had tremondous difficulty with sight words when we started PG. He would read a word on the page and not recognize the same word in the next sentence. He has severe visual deficits but still learned to read with PG. It took me 6 months of teaching him every single day. He did make 2 years progress in that 6 months.

We did vision therapy later for the problem with missing small words, losing his place and a general dislike for reading along with a problem with being a phonetic speller and considerable writing issues. I tried seeing stars with him and agree that it is a great program but he couldn’t develop symbol imagery without the remediation of his visual deficit.

As it turns out his symbol imagery, spelling and writing have improved tremendously with VT. Our therapist does a lot of work to improve visualization along with a ton of other skills like left/right differentiation, focusing, visual spatial orientation, balance. I personally believe that all of these deficits were like numerous stones weighing him down.

I also have wondered if the LMB people didn’t get seeing stars from the world of vision therapy. My son’s optometrist has been doing this for 40 years. I know not all optometrists address these issues.

My son’s teacher gave him an assignment today to read a poem and write a story in 2 minutes. He wrote a very good 5 sentence story that flowed nicely, showed an understanding of the poem, had all the periods and capitals in place with only one word mispelled.

I think I may be able to let that breath out that I have been holding since kindergarten.

Beth, I think there is merit to PG followed by Seeing Stars. I know Anna does not need LiPS. Her phonemic awareness is good. But she is not automatic on those advanced code patterns. I think PG and SS is a good combination. I’ll be trying it eventually, so I’ll know for sure then!

Janis

Beth, when I took my son to the LMB clinic, he did not do any lip poppers, or even feel the sounds — they told me he didn’t need that. After several years, he already knew his letters and sounds.

There’s much more to the LIPs program. It was a reading program — intense phonics. He had to learn the rules to phonics, such as “e” bonkers and “defender d” “when two vowels go walking, the first does the talking and says its name”, etc. I think my son needed to learn the rules to try and make sense of the language.

It’s unfortunate that your tutor labeled your child “learned helplessness”. I had that label too put on my son and it’s just not true. I don’t think the 3 day training program in LIPs is enough for some tutors. I think that’s why Lindamood Bell says they can’t guarantee their programs unless they are done at the clinic.

I didn’t buy the learned helplessness diagnosis. My son had just finished Interactive Metronome and had done exceptionally well. He was feeling just great.

I think she didn’t know how to teach him. She kept him doing exercises that were hard for him for too long until he fatigued and couldn’t perform at all. She was a classroom teacher so the rhythm may just have been different, although she did a fair amount of tutoring. But my son is different than a lot of LD kids—more serious issues.

That is interesting about your Lindamood experience. I have shyed away from it because I certainly didn’t want to go through that again. I do know he does need the visual imagery that Seeing Stars provides, although we’re making some progress using AVKO spelling as well.

The advantage of PG is that it may provide a boost in less hours, and thus less money, than Lindamood. He has learned to read using PG but loves to guess at second syllable of words. So there is definite decoding work that needs to be done, as well as visual imaging.

His sight vocabulary is grade level and his sight vocabulary efficiency,as measured by the TOWRE, is grade level. His decoding efficiency is lower—not at grade level.

Beth

Beth,

That’s about where my son was at the beginning of the summer. I had tutored him using Reading Reflex prior to the clinic, and he had done Earobics intensively. We are still working on vision therapy (!).

I think my son had enough exposure to the program, auditory training (the Earobics really did help him, even though I’ve heard it panned in other places), and just general maturity to be able to overcome that hurdle between guessing at second syllables and actually being able to decode them. Linda said she actually spent a lot of the first two days talking to him to get him over his mental aversion to reading. But she got him over it and had him decoding in that week!

Since he isn’t doing the reading as intensively (at home for 30 minutes a night, no Support Book work), I can see him starting slip into some of his old habits. I’m trying to counteract that by using the PG method with his spelling words, and subject vocabulary. But those are sort of static compared to reading a sentence. But we’ll keep plugging away. :-) We keep taking baby steps.

I’m trying to figure out how to get my son back down there for a refresher course at Christmas break and again at Spring Break - and then perhaps a week of Language Wise next summer. Linda had a huge impact on my son’s learning, and even though she worked him hard, he really liked her, and still mentions her once in a while. :-) They really clicked with each other.

I hope you have the same experience if you go.

Lil

Lil,

Linda emailed me so now we just have to connect in real time.

I am hoping for the same experience you describe. He worked with Linda three years ago but frankly I think the intensive doesn’t work as well with young children. He really had no framework for reading, despite having finished first grade. He did come home decoding words but it wasn’t what I had hoped for.

I have used some Seeing Stars with him. He can image letters and is learning to spell now using both AVKO spelling a variation of how PG teaches spelling. He couldn’t do either a few years ago.

I guess I am hoping that his visual issues at this point aren’t as severe as mpk’s son so he will benefit from more PG.

I do think Lindamood is more comprehensive and perhaps a better guarantee because it addresses visual imaging plus sound-symbol connections but the clinic is much more expensive than PG. My experience with an individual trained in LIPS, as I said, was not good. I guess it is a question of taking calculated risks……

If a PG intensive could just stop him from guessing at the second syllable of multi-syllable words, it would be money well spent. I am way past hoping for miracles from any therapy…..I just look for incremental improvement.

Beth

If I’d known how Linda made my son read the second syllables he wouldn’t have needed the clinic. But somehow she made that happen for him. And he was somewhat stressed, it is very tiring. But he came away liking the person who did it (Linda), and is willing to work with her again.

I think that says a lot.

Maybe (?) your son is at a similar point, and just needs that push from someone who isn’t “Mom” to help tip him over that edge. That’s what I thought I intuitively understood about my son before we got there, but the proof is always in the pudding. :-)

I’m sure you read about me tutoring a repeating first grader this summer. I’ve almost come to believe that she is not mature enough to advance any further with the program (we were still in the pink portion of the Reading Reflex support book, and had just started on blue). I see her at soccer games, and we might read a little bit … but it is’t what I had hoped for her. I also think she is ADHD (her Dad is) and may not advance any further until IM or medication. :-) I’m planning to do IM next summer with my son. We did vision therapy and PG this summer because I really wanted him reading in 5th grade, although I have already gotten his primary care phsycian to write a referral for IM.

Good luck at the clinic. We had a great experience, and I hope you do, too.

Lil

And by the way, my son’s school system teaches “guessing” as a preferred reading method. You might want to check with your son’s teacher, and have a conference with her about how guessing is really hurting your son, not helping him (if they do that). My son’s teacher is very willing to not allow him to guess this year, and force him to segment and decode appropriately. (yay!)

Lil