More Lips vs PG

>This is my first post.

Hi, this is my 7,000,000 th post :-)

>1. Lips has a screening test (LAC..I believe) that suggests which students would benefit from it. Does PG have a similar test (without buying the whole kit)?

You don’t have to buy too much for PG. There is a $20 book. There are various materials that would be useful to have and most likely training would be useful.

There is a test in the book that tests some basic phonemic awareness skills. Things like say “cat” without the /c/. Say these sounds /c/ /a/ /t/ and put them into a word. The test isn’t a traditional standardized test but does give you something to work with. The LAC only measures phonemic awareness and is not a test of other reading skills.

2. Which has the most intensive training program?

Far and away— LiPS. LiPS starts at a very low level, really for kids with almost zilch phonemic awareness. I would not recommend it without doing the training (though I am struggling along). LiPS teaches phonemes by teaching the kids where their mouth, tongue, lips are and labels the sounds, kids learn labels, track individual sounds, etc. It is not needed for all kids. However, for those kid who need that much intensity there really is not much else out there.

3. Which is easier to implement?

PG far and away. LiPS requires training (in my case I spent hours and hours going thru the manual, but I imagine my knowledge is still shaky, also have a speech background which helps). PG can be done by an untrained person reading the book Reading Reflex. Or someone can get some training.

4. Does anybody begin treatment with Lips, and move into PG?

It’s very possible. You might start that way with someone who has NO phomemic awareness skills or very limited ones and thru LiPS gains them. Then they go on to a more conventional type program, I’d say prolly Seeing Stars (another LMB program), OG or PG.
(Oh yeah OG is Orton Gillingham).

5. What kit do you recommend for later fluency?

Neither is a fluency program. There are several out there such as Great Leaps.

>Thank you sincerely for your time…[/quote]

No problemo.

—des

Agree w/Des on everything. I typed a long post and lost it. So I will be short.

There is another lady from Calary doing her own spin off of Phono-graphix. If you are looking for a comprehensive program, do check out Steve. Truches program at www.readingfoundation.com. If you are just looking for plain decoding post on the ReadNOW listserve. ANother lady who is doing a PG spin off right in Calgary might be your ticket. I saw her program and it was impressive. Looked more professional than Phonographix. Better stories. No spelling errors. Not sure on pricing. And, she is right there in Calgary. I had dinner with her. SHe is very smart and I think she would be a great trainer.

Michelle AZ

Thanks,
So Lips is mainly Phonemic Awareness, while PG is more a reading program (I know both kits have some of both)? I spoke to that lady’s husband (in Calgary). They charge $60/hour and note that they utilise between 6 and 12 sessions. SO Des, do you use PG following Lips? If not, what do you use? An examination of pricing dictates that the Lips Clinical kit is reasonably priced ($250), so it would appear to be a nice supplementary tool for those kids with zip Phonemic awareness. How does this idea sound…use LAC and determine PE levels…if they are REALLY low, then begin with Lips, if they are not as low, go straight to PG? Or would you still recommend the other Lindamood products…if so, why? Again, I am digging this forum.

The LAC and other tests of phonemic awareness are necessarily a good indication of which program you should start with.

I have had students come in with very poor phonemic awareness scores who progressed very quickly with PG. LiPS would have been largely a waste of time for them.

A better indication, if we had a test for it, would be how quickly the child responds to explicit PA training. While a few children need the repetition, slowness and kinesthetics of LiPS to develop basic PA skills, most probably don’t need it.

My experience indicates that most children who are capable of printing letters can gain PA skills very quickly using PG techniques — especially “mapping”. I work with older children mostly (8yo and above), so perhaps this doesn’t apply as strongly to younger children.

My suggestion is to start a child on PG. If you don’t see significant progress within 3 hours of one-on-one using PG (with an equal amount of parent-supported homework, so really this would be 6 hours of PG work), then I would consider switching to LiPS. In my opinion, this would be the optimal approach. A child can have very low phonological awareness skills and still not need LiPS. Using PG first would identify these kids (which I think are the majority).

Nancy

Sorry, I meant to say that the LAC and other tests of PA are *not* necessarily a good indication of which program to start with. Typo!

What I am saying is that, although these tests do indicate current level of PA, they are not good indicators of how quickly a child can develop PA given explicit instruction.

Nancy

Lips will increase reading. In fact, after I had a student go to a Lips tutor over the summer and I knew I had to find a better program than Reading Mastery. After seeing his progress my eyes were opened. His decoding was remarkable.

Lips is wonderful. In my opinion and most people’s it is very hard to learn without training. I watched someone do it in my classroom with a student. Even after watching her, watching the videos and having all the materials, I still did not feel comfortable even trying it.

Most kids can do it with just PG. Maybe just a few out of a hundred remedial might need Lips. Both programs are very good if you have a good tutor. The tutor is key.

Michelle AZ

>So Lips is mainly Phonemic Awareness, while PG is more a reading program (I know both kits have some of both)?

I have been corrected on this. LiPS *is* a reading program, but not primarily so. Even says so in the title, “phonemic sequencing for reading, writing and speaking”. And PG does have PA in it. Any reading program that does not isn’t worth the time of day, imo. It’s just for the very involved kid, it may not be enough. I’d guess the “a few out of a hundred” might work here as an estimate. And yes, kids with poor phonemic awareness can do PG (or some other program). In fact, I am using OG with a kid with poor phonemic awareness. I would guess off hand it is the degree and depth of PA problems. I think a trial with something else is a reasonable way to go about it.

>I spoke to that lady’s husband (in Calgary). They charge $60/hour and note that they utilise between 6 and 12 sessions.

LMB believes in very intensive intervention. I have found that 3 times a week works ok at least in my situation. I am giving the kid homework. After a session a week I bring in mom and show her what I am working on. I made sure she can say the sounds correctly, that sort of thing.
The family and child are very motivated.

> SO Des, do you use PG following Lips?

YIKES! I have ONE kid doing LiPS, I would not advertise that I do LiPS. I am not trained. I did spend hours and hours and hours— I haven’t kept track but if it were a hundred I would not be surprised— with the manual and time before each session. I am not advising such a route. The situation was thusly, I had a kid who failed the Barton screening ( And I use Barton reading and spelling, a revised Orton Gillingham approach that includes all the training on video), Susan Barton told me that any kid that did not pass the screening could not do OG. She recommended finding someone who did LiPS. She also recommended he get to “tracking” of vowels and consonants. They had no referrals in my hinterland state for LiPS. LMB has no referrals. Barton gave me some place that may have people “cross trained”. I found out it is the same place that never answers their phone, email, etc. I told S. Barton what I had done on LiPS and she thought it might work out. I was quite upfront with the parents— I told them that if he was not making progress I would really work harder to find him someone else. Happily he is doing very well. He has learned all the consonant and digraph sounds which he could not even say previously, can place them with letters/letter, tell me the label— receptively, expressively, etc. etc.

I’m sorry I think I gave you more than you asked! OTOH, I am not a trained LiPS person and would not seek out someone who needed it. But I did want to let you know that this is not a manual to read casually and do. I think it is an awesome program.

>If not, what do you use?
When I am done with him in LiPS I will likely do Barton reading and spelling.

> An examination of pricing dictates that the Lips Clinical kit is reasonably priced ($250), so it would appear to be a nice supplementary tool for those kids with zip Phonemic awareness.

Well I think a lot of the kit wasn’t necessary. I made everything but ended up buying the letter tiles. If you had more money than time the kit would be nice. The manual itself is about $100, very dense stuff. I have a speech background which no doubt helped thru some of the more arcane points.
The training is almost a requirement. I would not recommend it without the training. The horizontal and vertical path thing alone took me hours to get.
The pacing is not clear cut. It is dense and intuberable material (is that a word?? :-)) I don’t know if the materials are at all useful without the program, I would guess not.

>How does this idea sound…use LAC and determine PE levels…if they are

I think you might need training to use the LAC. I’d just use the testing in the Pg book. It is easy and straight foward. I would go ahead and use PG or OG or… unless it became clear for some reason that that wasn’t going to work.

>Or would you still recommend the other Lindamood products…if so, why? Again, I am digging this forum.[/quote]

All the LMB products are excellent. I think that the On cloud nine (OCN) is particularly good for math disability, even taught me a thing or two. It is easy to understand and the manual is very good. Another great program is V/V. It is doable without training as well. Very good for kids with poor reading comprehension and there is almost nothing like it. Some parents particularly like Idea Chain (made by someone else and similar but more structured). Seeing Stars is neat, but also dense, though not so much as LiPS. This is for kids who are good decoders, but can’t remember the words and everything becomes something to decode. Very good for those kids whose fluency is caused by that problem— it’s weak visual imagery.
I’m sure the training is very very useful and plan to get it.

—des

Kelly,

I have had PG training and all the LMB trainings except LiPS. If you read Steve Truch’s article, you saw that the outcome with PG was just as good at LiPS.

But if I were in Calgary, I’d be going over to Steve Truch’s training. My guess is that with years and years of using both PG and LiPS, he has probably put together a very good program.

As for me, I may get the LiPS training in case I ever have an extremely delayed child, but I will primarily use PG for decoding until I can find soemthing better. I DO know someone who uses LiPS just for the oral PA work and then he sends the child to a PG tutor. But I have read a study in the last day or so that says teaching PA in isolation without letters is not all that fruitful.

What you MUST understand is that neither LiPS nor PG is a complete reading remediation program. They teach the pa/decoding portion only. You will need something for vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension as well. That’s why Truch’s program makes sense. He has all the components. LiPS, Seeing Stars, and Visualizing and Verbalizing is a good package, too, and that will cost $1400 per person to train, not including materials.

Janis

Boy, would I hesitate to make a generalization about programs when we’re talking about individual needs.

For the most part, I would not imagine a LiPS and then PhonoGraphix sequence. They are somewhat different approaches to the same issues — decoding. LiPS is much more intensive and much more multisensory — which provides a firmer foundation when that is needed. Some students’ individual processing issues make PG a real exercise in frustration. Other students individual processing strengths make all that multisensory and speech/language stuff an exercise in boredom (though frankly, they’ll learn it). I don’t find PG’s more “advanced code” stuff as good as the LiPS multisyllable word approaches, but it takes longer to get there with LiPS. So don’t get the impression that LiPS doesn’t go as far in reading as PG — it does… ***as far as decoding goes.*** NEither program does comprehension, phrasing, fluency, etc. I should say though, that in my training in a cousin if LiPS’ program, we also learned comprehension and fluency strategies and structures because we were teaching these kiddos and I was part of a school that had been doing that for 20 years and had been working on that stuff. An awful lot depends on the tutor’s resources — I gained more in a year than most tutors could in five.
Frankly, the more unique a kiddo is, the more likely I am to want a LiPS type —the training is more focused on tutorials and individual differences (and on students rather than The Program… but then it’s not like I’d be allowed to the ReadAmerica training anyway…)

Yes, I no doubt gave the impression that LiPS didn’t cover everything decoding and PA wise. It does. It gets into multisyllable words. I guess I am sort of contradicting myself. Nothing to worry about. :-)
It’s just that when I look at doing this program (in my limited sort of way) I have no intention of really going that far with LiPS.

There is something to my argument as LMB does not itself keep kids in Lips but either does SS or does SS with the LiPS.

I see the really really unique thing about it is that it takes apart the sounds so that some kid like the one I am working with is able to handle them. It is really impressive to me to see what this kid can now do that he couldn’t do a couple months ago. But when I get him into the ability to track with the vowels and consonants, I’m moving on to OG, with the Barton program. I believe at that point he would have the skills to handle it. Perhaps it’s just what I am more comfortable with. OTOH I agree that in no way is PG as comprehensive and multisensory as LiPS. I would not put the kid I’m working in PG as I think that on the higher levels, he would just miss a lot of it. I think OG is more multisensory. It is also more labor intensive. I’m sure there are also kids that don’t need to know what an open and closed syllable is, for example.

I also want to comment too that neither PG nor LiPS is complete as Janis and Sue pointed out.

—des

It’s extremely rare that I could possibly disagree with anything Sue says, but I must differ just a bit on her feelings about LiPS and PG.

Carmen McGuinness developed PG after being trained in LiPS. She took what she considered the essential components that would teach most children to read. I do not think anyone consider it as intensive as LiPS. But I have also read articles very recently that said research has shown that the articulatory feedback in LiPS has no positive effect on reading. Truch’s article compared outcome results on 200 cases who had gone through LiPS and 200 who had gone through PG (both 80 hours) and the outcomes were very similar. I have also read recent articles that say there is no evidence that teaching phonemic awarness in isolation without pairing the phonemes to graphemes is advantageous. So while I think LiPS should be held in very high regard, I don’t think all it’s components have been absolutely proven to be necessary. Both programs teach sound to symbol rather than the reverse, so I do not see them being in conflict.

The person I know who uses both is an audiologist/speech pathologist who specializes in auditory processing (and teaches in a graduate speech pathology program) in the Washington, DC area. He does some auditory phonemic awareness work from LiPS and then refers the child to the PG clinic. He also uses the other LMB programs for remediation as well.

I’d still look into Truch’s program if I lived in Canada, though. Hopefully he’s combined the best of both.

I’d have to go back to Kelly’s original post because I do not recall her exact question, but I thought she was asking for information regarding programs for her own training and not for a particular child. Obviously we’ll have kids with different needs and can’t generalize, but we can’t possibly train in every program either (just don’t tell my husband that, he won’t believe I said it!).

Janis

The weaknesses in the research comparing the two have already been gone over (basically, control over making sure you’vef got teh same randomness / selection of who does what).
I know what Carmen McGuinness has done. She has created a good — not particularly unique, but very good - program that captures the essentials that most children need in order to learn to read.
I also know just how personally she takes her work, at signficant expense. First it was the parent I knew of the very dyslexic child for whom the program simply wasn’t suited for. Fortunately a strong enough parent *not* to be badly hurt by being taken apart for have the utter gall to suggest such a travesty — again and again, she must be doing something wrong, she must already be tainting the program, or it would be working. Found out she was far from alone, but most of people didn’t take as much abuse as she was willing to sift through to try to get more ideas for teaching her child.
Even posting this, I risk what happened several years ago— she came on this board and flamed me personally, citing her use of what she called “healthy sarcasm” when people tried to dampen her “enthusiasm” for her program. Then — I wouldn’t make this up — REadAmerica employees monitored this board. (One of ‘em posted that it was “her watch.” ) That’s when I realized this went just a little deeper than enthusiasm. You could tell who was on what shift by who responded when with their repeated testimonials about how great Reading Reflex was and how horrible it was that so many people were “against” it. I perused the ReadAmerica board and found a fascinating world where enthusiastic support and teamwork flourished… until somebody crossed one of the many invisible lines. When one of the esteemed authors referred to multisensory reading programs as having children “tapping out the syllables to Hit-Ler, Hit-Ler” I just couldn’t read another line.
SUbsequently I talked to someone in the D.C. area whose partner is trained in PG — and she signed up for it, but partway through was asked to sign a paper saying that when she used it, she would use ONLY PG methods exclusively and never mix other methods or techniques, and never mix PG techniques with anyh others. She simply knew she could not file everything she learned from the training in a special place and remember which were the sacred PG rituals (my words, if you couldn’t guess) so she demurred; they asked her to leave, she asked for her money back. They gave it to her.
I can’t tell you how much I would love to recommend PG enthusiastically. It grieves me sorely when professionals with the same heartfelt goal don’t realize our common ground. Generally, the True Believers find a way to disbelieve what I’m saying — but ugly as it is, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. And I do apologize if this brings back the ReadAmerica Patrol, but I did want to clarify why I recommend the book… but not so enthusiastically the training.

And I hardly ever disagree with Janis (just enough guys to know she and I aren’t the same person). But I do disagree that articulatory feedback doesn’t help someone read. I doubt it would help the vast majority of readers—I think the vast majority wouldn’t need it, but for those who need it I doubt anything else would work. My one experience with it has been that powerful.

I see a huge difference between the skills of the one kid I have doing LiPS. He can now hear these sounds and say these sounds that he couldn’t hear and say a couple months ago. This kid is reading at a first grade level. Now he hasn’t really gotten to reading yet with me— but I can’t imagine how he could ever read any better if he couldn’t hear or say those sounds (ch, v, th, sh, wh, w, etc etc.). And he could never have heard or said them without the articulary feedback. In order to decode, you have to obviously have the ability to say and hear sounds. If not no decoding will ever take place. Someday he might be able to leave this behind, but right now I see him checking it out (he has some mild articulation problems and I think this is good therapy for that as well).

So maybe DIRECTLY it won’t teach you to read. I’ll buy that one, but IF you have a kid who can’t hear or say the sounds I don’t know how else you get them to the point where they are in the position to learn to decode.

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that PG, say, isn’t like those sloppy phonics programs that doesn’t really teach decoding and then say you really don’t need to know the sounds first.

I agree with Sue on the so-called research that was given. Not research imo.

OTOH, I sure as heck wouldn’t go thru that with most students. It would be tedious and boring as heck— and a certain amt of redundacy would take place.

—des

Sue and des,

Sue, I am also a bit fearful of posting on this very public board as well, but in regard to key personnel at a certain reading company, I am in more than 100% agreement with you. I probably know things at this moment that would make you even more disgusted. However, the program itself is one of the easier for new teachers or parents to implement. And I do think it is effective for most (not all) kids. Oh, and Sue, as far as I can tell there are almost no employees left at that company, so it’s unlikely that we’ll have patrols here now.

I am actively looking for a new method that can be highly recommended in terms of both effectiveness and ease of use without exorbitant cost. I have absolutely loved my Lindamood Bell trainings and have found that company to be very friendly and helpful, but I do not feel most people could use it really effectively without training. Training for LiPS, Seeing Stars, and V/V is about $1400 and that does not include materials which are also pricey. Add to that travel expense for those who don’t have a clinic nearby and that adds up to big bucks…out of reach for many parents and teachers. My district wouldn’t pay a penny for those trainings. I just did it because I’m obsessed (and there is a clinic an hour away so I had no travel expense)!!! I feel semi-confident in using LMB programs myself but am very far from feeling I could train tutors to use it. We had staff trained in PG at my child’s charter school last summer because we felt is was usable by aides with some mentoring. However, I do have some regrets about that decision now.

des, I can certainly buy into the articulatory feedback being benficial to some kids, I just read that some studies have concluded that it is not generally effective. I should save every article I read so I can reference it, but I don’t. My school SLP came to me the other day and asked me WHAT I am doing with this hearing impaired child that she and I both work with. She told me she has noticed a definite improvement in her articulation of phonemes and she knew she hadn’t done it. I had just finished 3 months of PG with the child the week before. That was a very unexpected but wonderful outcome!

Just FYI to both of you, I am looking at Steve Truch’s Discover Reading program as well as a Spalding based program put out by the Riggs Institute. Here are the sites in case either of you are interested:

http://www.readingfoundation.com/

http://www.riggsinst.org/index.shtml

I am always open to feedback from my respected friends!

Janis

Well, I just heard that there is a former PG trainer who has written her own program and copyrighted it and it will be our early next year. The site is not operational yet but will be sometime in January. The address will be www.phoneticsfirst.com. It sounds very, very good and will come with a training video or CD for $219. I’ll keep you posted.

Janis

Hmmm…. company’s shrunk? Interesting. I agree, LiPS is totally out of the league of, well, most people, though there are a few companies that have tweaked the training down to a bit cheaper especially for schools.
Patterns for Success in Reading and Spelling is another good one, by Marcia K. Henry & Nancy C. Redding . (can be had from www.rlac.com) I think it does a good job of making lessons easy to follow.
I wonder how close to Spalding the Riggs is — I know it can be sometimes confusing (Spalding) when it does things like present the last sound in “baby” as a “short i” sound. Trouble is with most of these programs is there are things that you really just have to accept and go with because it’s part of a solid structure.

Sue,

It is SO interesting that you asked that specific question as I had email correspondence just this week with the director of Riggs, Myrna McCullough to ask that very question! Yes, they have updated those phonograms!!! They have corrected some of the flaws in Spalding. If nothing else, I will probably order their phonogram cards, but I’m tempted to order the whole program.

I don’t mean to sound like I am name dropping, but I went to a conference with Marcia Henry back in September and she was wonderful! It was a 3 hour session so we got to hear a lot of her ideas. I bought her new book which is very good, also. I was able to look at Patterns for Success and have considered buying it so I’ll have one OG program. However, I think I’m leaning more toward the Riggs at this point. Somewhere on the Riggs site you can get to a page that says “What We Teach” and it lists the overview of the program.

Janis

> is effective for most (not all) kids. Oh, and Sue, as far as I can tell there are almost no employees left at that company, so it’s unlikely that we’ll have patrols here now.

Did you all know I am one. I am just letting you all expose yourselves. :-P

>ompany to be very friendly and helpful, but I do not feel most people could use it really effectively without training.

I agree. I feel lucky I have a really willing student a LOT of time and so on.
I think Sue made the comment that LiPS is over the head of most people— I’ll put myself in there. :-}

>des, I can certainly buy into the articulatory feedback being benficial to some kids, I just read that some studies have concluded that it is not generally effective. I should save every article I read so I can reference it,

Generally— I’ll buy that. I think the vast majority of even dyslexic kids don’t need it. BTW, was looking at a book on phonemic awareness for young kids and saw they stuck some of this articulatory feedback in there and I thought “why are they doing that?” I have no doubt PA activities are useful but just putting that in there…

—des

See des, there we are aggreeing again!!!

Janis

Yes, I just like to say something contrary to you once an awhile. That way no one will think we’re the same person. :-P

—des

:D