Results from LMB Seeing Stars Intensive

Perhaps he just needs to spend more time reading for pleasure to get back his rate. I found with kids when we were doing LMB intensives with LIPS, Seeing Stars at a PRIVATE Clinic that was not owned by LMB we also did Read Naturally to keep improving reading rates and fluency.

I bet this is something that LMB didn’t do. I found that when I was just working on the bones of the remediation program, ie., just LIPS or Seeing Stars that I had to do fluency exercises to get their reading fluency up. Other wise I had kids who could decode but their fluency was still slow.

Your son’s results make sense to from my clinical experience.

Perhaps he just needs to spend more time reading for pleasure to get back his rate. I found with kids when we were doing LMB intensives with LIPS, Seeing Stars at a PRIVATE Clinic that was not owned by LMB we also did Read Naturally to keep improving reading rates and fluency.

I bet this is something that LMB didn’t do. I found that when I was just working on the bones of the remediation program, ie., just LIPS or Seeing Stars that I had to do fluency exercises to get their reading fluency up. Other wise I had kids who could decode but their fluency was still slow.

Your son’s results make sense to from my clinical experience.

Beth-
I think rate takes a LONG time to improve, and sometimes does not improve much at all; my son is going into 8th and still reads slowly, despite years of intervention…but the accuracy and comprehension have greatly improved and allow him to do very well in middle school. I still alternate pages in some textbooks with him, as this is the slowest stuff for him to read. Sounds like you’re on track…

I actually am not unhappy with these results, although of course I would rather had the increase in accuracy without the decrease in speed. He has a long history of skipping and misreading words so this is a significant change and one that I know I could not have made. I think this is fast as he can read and still accurately process.

The Neuronet therapist we have worked a long time with has a series of exercises that he was not able to master a year ago that automate speed. He has moved now through the first set. She says that there is a big difference in his visual skills from doing SS. She says the remaining issues are motor and that is more easily changed with her program. I am hopeful that NN coupled with SS can give us greater fluency. And if not, well, I think he is still better off with greater accuracy even if fluency (rate and accuracy) is the same.

I also have been having him following along with books on tape. I figure it is much like Read Naturally and he had two books he had to read this summer for school (My Side of the Mountain and Maniac Magee). He read the first one outloud but I ordered books on tape for the second one. He listened to it once and now is listening to it again and following along in the book.

We have started school already in Florida and I noticed that he was much faster at doing his vocabulary workbook than last year.

Beth

I always go for accuracy first, speed second. What is the value of a fast mistake?

I’d say to keep insisting absolutely on the accuracy — don’t let him feel hurried into guessing. Speed comes with time, mastery, and practice.

There Victoria goes again…writing exactly what I was thinking!

I hope he has a great school year, Beth! He has made amazing progress over time!

Janis

Glad to hear your LMB intensive went so well. Just for what it’s worth and a possible resource at some future time - we continue to be very happy with our son’s progress in Read Right. It’s main focus is fluency and accuracy, thinking about the sense of what is being read. Our son continues to be willing to phone his tutor and read and reread passages until they are “excellent”. He has been in the program a year, but we feel he gets intensive reading practice which he does not get so individually at school. Also, getting him to read to me for the same intensity would not happen. You know our situation enough to know the steps forward are slow but steady and while there are always more therapies than we have time or money for, Read Right has been a good choice for us.

Dr. Joseph Torgeson (from Florida State University) has been doing reading research with the federal National Institutes of Health, and he found that while they were able to improve work attack, word accuracy, and comprehension fluency still lagged. He said that individuals have to encounter, decode, and read words enough times that they are recognized instantly in order for fluency to improve. The number of times a person needs to be exposed to a word before it becomes automatic varies with the individual. He also stated that, unfortunately, when a child is a poor reader, they read less and don’t get enough practice in reading millions of words in order to become fluent. Basically, he is saying that once a child is able to read, he will need to do a lot of reading in order to improve his fluency.

That is exactly right, Linda, and that is why I never agreed with the PG spiel of saying 12 hours of therapy and that does it! What a lie! The three or 4 months of decoding instruction is the beginning of a long process. I’ve heard countless times about kids who have gone to intensives like LMB and eventually lost their gains. Why? You can’t stop therapy after the intensive. It must be continued on and never stopped until the child is reading within the normal range of rate and accuracy for his age.

Janis

Seeing Stars uses a word card box where words start out slow and get moved up to faster categories. When the child says the word easily and correctly five times, it is moved to grad. Those you go over less often (we do it once a week). My son really retained probably 98% of the words that graduate (he totally blanked out today on choas but that was only one of three out of a rather large stack!)

I do think you all are right—reading builds fluency but it is tough because LD kids are slower so they like reading less.

As far as losing gains with LMB, I overheard parents in the waiting room discussing exactly that. The clinicians bemoaned to me how many people are willing to bring their kids there but do not follow up with reading every day. I must say I am finding it more and more difficult with my son. I suspect he has had too many years of reading interventions and is just sick of it all. He is in fifth grade this year and I feel like this is the last push to solidify his skills before middle school.

Angela, what is great about your son is that he is taking responsibility for his own learning. Mine is too young for such an approach–I just got him to answer the phone when it rings!!! And he only does things because I “make him”.

Beth

Has school started? Could be that he’ll get plenty of practice then (though it is also posisble that he won’t — there are settings where students really can figure out what they’re doing and look like students without ever actually *reading* anything).

Sue,

My son got much smarter about school last year….he learned how to find the answers without reading very much!!! Now this is an important skill, especially for one who reads slowly. In fact, he told me yesterday that he doesn’t have to read very much at school.

We made a deal yesterday. He reads for me and I let him do the sport he wants. I had signed him up for AYSO soccer but he just made the basketball team at school. He has played soccer for five years but now wants to do school sports. So I will support him (including losing money), if he does what he is supposed to do. Basic philosophy is you do what you are supposed to do before you do what you want to do.

I felt like I was really playing hardball but it worked.

Beth

SOunds good! Do you know how you’re going to manage the reading? (Notebook of missed words to practice for 2 mnutes before oral reading, etc)?

Well, what I have been doing is having him read a grade level book of his own chosing (currently a mystery set in the Everglades) for 20 minutes (I use a timer!). I write down words he hesitates on or incorrectly decodes for “the box”. We go through the box every day (doing this has not been a problem). I told him we could alternative between him reading to me and him following along with books on tape (do you think the later has enough value?).

I guess I am waiting to see what happens with his reading speed. I am reluctant to work directly on speed in a program like Great Leaps because I have worked so hard to get him to be accurate. He always, before, denied making errors and it was just a point of conflict. He is def. far more self correcting now and I don’t want to lose that in interest of speed.

What do you think?

Beth

Beth,
I think that sounds like a good routine! It’s difficult to keep their skills up, I know my son has lost some. But on the positive side, I think when we let them have a little relief and then at some point “amp up” the work (either ourselves or though an outside intensive program), they improve a little more quickly and easily.

Stick with accurate if slow decoding for a while — it wouldn’ be much loss to him to wait for a year or even two to push for speed. Besides, if he is like my students, his speed will pick up with accuracy and practice and you won’t need to push.

The twenty-minute timer is a bit artificial and will cut off right in the middle of a sentence; can you time him for an average number of pages in twenty minutes for a day or two, figure out the average number of pages in a chapter, and work out a reasonable way of splitting the chapters up, say for example one chapter in two days? That way you get much more meaning without any excessive pressure.

I mistrust books on tape as a reading teaching tool; you have no feedback on how much is actually going into his head. And as mentioned above, comprehension tests can often be answered with very litle reading. I’d stick with oral reading at least three times a week for at least a year, until habits are solidly ingrained; and go bacvk to it if there is any backsliding later, or for heavier material such as science texts.

I think what you’re doing right now is the ticket. Keep working on the accuracy — the practice is invaluable. If he gets a novel or something as required reading, I’d make that happen on tape to at least try to get him to occasionally not do creative skimming.

I guess I am waiting to see what happens with his reading speed. I am reluctant to work directly on speed in a program like Great Leaps because I have worked so hard to get him to be accurate. He always, before, denied making errors and it was just a point of conflict. He is def. far more self correcting now and I don’t want to lose that in interest of speed.

It’s an interesting behavioral problem the denial of errors. If it were my child (and I’m well aware it isn’t and also that I’m working on extremely limited information) I would do one minute of read/reread work daily (one of the premises behind Great Leaps) and I would use immediate correction and modeling. It would not be a punishing situation and I would reward good behavior and good performance. If there is denial of an error on his part, I would be just matter of fact and continue with the immediate correction. Again, if I control the reinforcers, I can control the situation (all without coercion or significant disruption.)

It is worth it to work on his speed, which is deficient. Let him know that when he reads a bit faster (while maintaining high accuracy) he will understand what he reads better (his speed must approach the speed of human conversation) and he will finish his homework faster.,

Best of luck, I hope this helps, Ken

Ken,

I don’t think the denial of errors was a behavioral problem. I have Great Leaps and have done it with him. I think he simply did not know when he made mistakes and time pressures made this worse. One thing we got out of doing Seeing Stars is that he is much more self correcting. Some of this has obviously come at the expense of speed.

Victoria,

I think your suggestion of number of pages is a reasonable one. I have gone to a timer as a way around his game playing. When he decides he has to go the bathroom or get a drink of water or discuss something terribly urgent, I turn off the timer. I used to say 20 minutes and he’d do his best to do as little reading as possible!!!

Beth

P.S.

To Victoria—I have always tried for reading every day and end up with about five times a week. Maybe I will try for 5 to get that three. If I try to do three, I will end up with 2, if my experience with exercise is any guide!!!

I have to agree that I have some reservations with him following along with tape too, except that he told me how much work it is. I may do it some, just to give me a break. It certainly doesn’t have the same level of quality control!

Beth,
I don’t usually check this forum and so I missed your exciting news!

When my son started at his LD school last fall, his reading seemed even less fluent for several months. I think that is common when a child starts to really pay attention to decoding properly. The good news is we started to see an improvement in fluency in the spring.

And I am thrilled to tell you that it all keeps clicking. He still sometimes guesses, but more often than not immediately corrects himself.

He just finished a real book, staying up for an hour and a half last night to finish it– I’d call that reading for pleasure. (The day my butt went psycho - terrible in terms of literary merit, but very funny to a 10 year old, and written with grade-level language. I recommend it !)

It sounds like your son’ s made great progress and it will only continue to improve.

Karen,

Thanks for the update. I am encouraged to know that your son slowed down in the same way and that then fluency improved.

And on reading on his own–I would not care about literary merit either!! I really don’t think I will see the day my son will voluntarily read any book. He is very clear about the fact that he hates reading.

But I am willing to be wrong!!!

Beth

Its funny, My son insists that he hates to read. And yet this summer we found him frequently staying up past his required amount of reading b/c he was enjoying his book. Last night he barely said good night to me, he was so eager to keep reading. I think its a really important step in his psychological healing as he accepts his LD. He would never however pick up a book on his own. The reading still happens as part of his nightly routine. But its so much better than it used to be. So onto the sequel ” Zombie butts of uranus”

sigh.

There are certain things that you have to dislike by cultural necessity. When I was a kid you absolutely had to hate school and you had to hate learning French worst of all. Anybody who actually liked school or teachers or French was a weirdo. So, let him hate reading, as long as he’s rushing off to finish his book.

Karen,

Do you have your son read on his own for 20 minutes every night? I still have mine read outloud. I keep wondering about switching but then I have no quality control on his accuracy. On the other hand, he is never going to want to keep reading a book my way.

Beth

Beth,
I just recently started encouraging my son to read a little bit on his own. I try to have him read 30-50 minutes outloud daily with me, and then at bedtime I’ve started pulling out super easy picture books (all those ones I read to him when he was a toddler!) and telling him things like, “You used to love this book!” or “Here’s a great one!” and “Here’s a wonderful book to help you relax and fall asleep.” I then turn the lamp on next to his bed and he has started reading them! Keep in mind these are EASY books to read!!!! But they are still very good stories and the illustrations are wonderful.

Also, sometimes in the morning I’ll notice a second book next to his bed! Regardless of accuracy, how much he’s reading, or how “juvenile” these books are, at least he’s taking them off his shelf and looking at them. That’s a start!!! :wink:

Beth - during the school year his homework was to read aloud word lists, phrases and short stories. Then his teacher “assigned” 15 minutes of nightly reading. His reply was he didn’t have time so we told him he could stay up 15 minutes later to do it. (Truth is he doesn’t need an early bedtime anymore , which has been an issue for us b/c most kids his age can read at night while mom and dad relax…)

His teacher told us (and praised him) for the reading and credited the improvement in his fluency to the independent reading.

For the summer his teacher wanted him to read aloud to me. SHe feels that he’s more likely to self correct if he hears himself. So we’ve been doing 10-15 minutes of him reading to me, and then I leave his room. We just maintained the expectation that he’d continue reading as a pre-bedtime ritual and that’s where things have taken off.

There’s no doubt in my mind that he has benefitted from having intensive remediation this year. OG 3 times a day plus homework , plus reading at night has made a big difference.

So to answer your question - a little bit of both. I think when school starts I won’t need him to read to me out loud anymore b/c the homework will provide that feedback.

The “Hank Zipzer” books by Henry Winkler are entertaining. They are about a boy in fifth grade (I think) who has learning disabilities, and the trouble he gets into. There are 5 of them. “I got a D in Salami”, “Niagara Fall or Does It”, “Day of the Iguana”, “The Night I Failed My Field Trip”—can’t remember the last.

They are pretty funny, and the dialog sounds so typical of kids especially between Hank and his little sister when they bicker at each other.

Great idea. We have some on our shelf, but when we got them they were too difficult for my DS. I think its time to bring them out. Thanks for reminding me.