Feedback on Lindamood Bell

I am a teacher and not a parent, so I haven’t really had experience with it. However, I have a comment. IF your child was diagnosed as having severe auditory processing problems or severe dyslexia, I think it would be worth it. However, if not, I would recommend perhaps some tutoring by a qualified individual (or even a person who has had the LiPS training but is not at the center). The center is quite pricey and intensive, and not everyone can afford it. There are some things to be said for an intensive approach, but really not every child needs it.

I have gotten really good results working with kids for an hour two or three times a week, and I really enjoy working with younger kids like this. So maybe you can find someone who shares such sentiments. I’d suggest calling your local IDA chapter, www.iser.com, and/or looking carefully around for a tutor via local weeklies and that kind of thing. Too bad but Victoria has posted an excellent list of suggestions for what to ask a tutor, but maybe she would mail it to you.

Of course, I don’t know what the exact disability here is. There are also home based type programs that are worth investigating if you are of the disposition to do that (and you and your child work well today in a teacher- child situation). So it would be helpful to list here what the problems are. He is also of a good age for some of the cognitive/processing type programs, ie PACE or audiobox. But again depends on the problem.

—des

Do it!

We didn’t find out about LMB until our son was already in 3nd grade. We had been tutoring him 2x a week ( a wonderful OG tutor) but decided to do a 4 week program with them. He went 4 hours a day, and it was the first time we saw marked improvement in his decoding. I believe that LMB and OG are both scientifically valid, multisensory, approaches to teaching reading. I think its the intensity of LMB that made it work for our DS.

BTW, we ended up enrolling him in a special LD school that uses straight OG, and that too is working. I’m not saying LMB is better, but the way they set up their centers gives you an opportunity for intensive remediation that a tutor would be hard pressed to match. And on an hourly basis it was comparable in cost. Of course you pay alot up front, but you are getting alot of remediation at once too.

Last summer my 11 year old son did four weeks of LMB at a center minutes from our house. My son’s decoding skills were in the average range by then from other therapies and he did their Seeing Stars program but not LIPS. He finished the entire program in four weeks. We saw signficant changes in reading accuracy, which was an issue for him.

While I do think the program was valuable I frankly don’t regret doing LMB earlier. I happen to agree with Des that most kids don’t require what LMB offers. And I don’t mean this just in terms of the intensity. LIPS has children feeling sounds in their mouths. For children with significant auditory processing problems, this can be the only way they learn efficiently. But this is a minority of children. My son was diagnosed with an auditory processing disorder (APD) and LIPS was not necessary for him. Seeing Stars focuses on seeing the letters of words in your mind. It is the best program I know for that but again not all children need it. Many children have issues with the auditory link but not the visual one.
My son had both.

We used Phonographix to teach our son to read. The home based book is called Reading Reflex. We also did two different intensives in Orlando, Florida. Frankly, we got as much movement in reading doing those as we did doing Seeing Stars for far less money (of course, we were able to drive there which made it cheaper). And that is how we got his decoding skills in the average range without LIPS. But last spring I decided that Seeing Stars might provide a piece of the puzzle that was still missing.
And it did.

If money is no issue, then go ahead and do the LMB intensive. I do think they have good programs and it will provide a jump start for your son. They have a core staff and that is who you will get during the school year, at least here. In the summer they train college students who are supervised by the core staff. That made me a bit nervous, given how much money we were spending but I have no complaints. The core staff member assigned to him kept on top of everything.

But it isn’t the first thing I would suggest to a parent with a kid with LD—mostly because of the cost. I would tend to take a more conservative approach and try things that work with most kids first.

Beth

Des - tx for the info…. our son’s problems are specifically: phonemic awareness/memory and rapid naming…. we have a good friend who is a speech therapist who is high on LMB…dont know how severe he is… his ER says there is a significant descrepany between his verbal reasoning (weakness) and his visual/spatial reasoning… he is reading right now at where he should be for his grade; however,we know the words are going to get more difficult… also, speech therapist friend believes it is important to address the “underlying problem” of learning the phonemes — the sounds w/o even the letters. We dont fully understand all this but we have an IEP coming up… he qualifies for special ed now but when we looked at the room w/ one teacher and 6 or so kids, we weren’t thrilled w/ what we saw…. have toyed w/ sending him FT to LMB in Jan. — or finding a really good tutor… and supplementing the school stuff w/ this….LMB is 4 hours a day, 8 weeks — $12,000. If we felt like it matched his needs directly, we’d do it….how do we find that out? we are also looking for leads for tutors — have started randomly emailing reading specialists at local schools to try to drum up leads….any more thoughts?

But I got the training in LMB and I used that to teach my daughter to read. We did LiPS/Seeing stars and Visualizing and Verbalizing. Then I decided to become an SLP…also with my daughter’s it wasn’t just the Reading piece that was an issue it was the CAPD/ADD that was causing the reading issue. We finally did meds due to hitting a plateau and this decision helped accelerated her acquisition of skills.

Des - Last post from “guest” was from me. Thanks.

paulandjeanne

It is unusual for a child to qualify for an IEP in first grade. My son did because he had qualified as a preschooler with a disability (speech impaired). What is his history? What test scores do you have? That would give us more idea of the severity of his issues.

The best test I know to assess the severity of auditory deficits needed for reading is CTOPP. It is usually administered by speech and language therapists so maybe your friend is familiar with it.

LMB has good comprehensive testing that would give you additional information if the testing you already have doesn’t give you enough information to make a decision. They will, of course, recommend their program but I know people who have used their testing without their programs.

Beth

Let me add to my previous post, lest my enthusiasm for LMB seem blind. I think the other posters have many good points, and of course every child is different and has different needs.

My son , by the time he did LMB, had “broken the code” for the most part and didn’t need Lips. He did Seeing Stars and it worked very well for him. He has poor visual memory and the way they had him air writing and visualizing words even improved his extremely poor spelling. But again, it was the intensity that made the difference. And for him, being able to see the difference himself boosted his fading self esteem.

The teachers were college kids trained in LMB methods which was like a breath of fresh air for my son. He was up to his eyeballs that year in middle aged ladies: me, his SLP, his teacher, his tutor. Going to the center was like being taught reading by cool camp counselors and he enjoyed the interaction with all the other kids. THey took snack breaks together.

For us the cost was approx $90/hour at LMB and we were paying more than that for our OG trained, Phd in reading, tutor. We figured this was a kid who was going to need thousands of hours of tutoring and this investment in LMB was just a few of those hours . We did it over a 2 week winter break, and then I took him out of school early for 8 additional days so the impact to his regular schedule was minimal.

>Des - tx for the info…. our son’s problems are specifically: phonemic awareness/memory and rapid naming…. we have a good friend who is a

Problems in rapid naming and phonemic awareness are prob. a good match for the LMB people. They would most likely do a combo of LiPS and Seeing Stars.

>weakness) and his visual/spatial reasoning… he is reading right now at where he should be for his grade; however,we know the words are going to get more difficult…

I think that’s safe to say. In fact, many kids don’t really show signs of dyslexia until they are about in 3rd or 4th grade when the visual memory load of reading gets higher. He may be reading more by visual memory and configuration (shape of words) cues. In first grade this isn’t too hard, but with poor phonemic awareness— he’s going to have trouble with reading— pretty safe to say.

> also, speech therapist friend believes it is important to address the “underlying problem” of learning the phonemes — the sounds w/o even the letters. We dont fully understand all this but we have an IEP coming

LMB does tie the letters with the sounds (but backwards from the way they do it in phonics— ie letters stand for sounds— in LiPS sounds are represented by letters). In fact, it is necessary to tie them together so I don’t agree with the speech therapist entirely on that. I think the research says phonemic awareness in total isolation isnt’ too effective. I’m going by what I read on readbygrade3 so I’m no expert! :-)

>up… he qualifies for special ed now but when we looked at the room w/ one teacher and 6 or so kids, we weren’t thrilled w/ what we saw…. have toyed w/ sending him FT to LMB in Jan. — or finding a really good tutor…’

I tend to agree with you here. There are some amazing exceptions I’ve read right here, but I am not too gung ho on some of the stuff that passes for special ed. where kids are really kept isolated vs actually teaching him something. I think you are better off with a tutor or the LMB program.

>and supplementing the school stuff w/ this….LMB is 4 hours a day, 8 weeks — $12,000. If we felt like it matched his needs directly, we’d do it….how do we find that out?

That’s a good question. He is young enough that you can try some other things, otoh, he is young enough where some intensive intevention would make a lot of sense! Before he has had all the failure. but just because they have a big price tag…. They do have a good reputation, though.

> we are also looking for leads for tutors — have started randomly emailing reading specialists at local schools to try to drum up leads….any more thoughts?

Well to be honest, I don’t think the reading specialists are going to be too helpful. Most reading specialists sadly do not know that much about reading! I’d take my Barton certification and several months of intensive study over most of what reading specialists in public schoools have to offer. You can call your local IDA— look up the page for ida and there will be local connections. Also you can look for tutors on iser.com and/or local weeklies, etc. Ask lots of questions like what is your training and background (just wanting to work with kids and having some teaching experience isn’t it), you are looking for LiPS or LMB types of training, Orton Gillingham or other relevant type training; maybe some referrals or references. What do they recommend? How often do they want to work with your son (if they say once a week, it isn’t enough!); don’t look for guarantees. The tutor should do some type fo evaluations, even if these are informal. There shouldn’t be long contracts that look hard to get out. But you should give this a little time. OTOH, you should see some types of results in a month. NOt reading on level but knowing more sounds, that type of thing. Try to find someone you feel comfortable with, do they work with the parent? That type of thing. DON’T go for computerized reading– these kids need intensive and human intervention; look for one on one; don’t go in for Sylvan, Kumon, or other francise tutoring operations. They are not specific to ld kids.

HTH,

—des

I wasted alot of money on sylvan and private tutors that got us absolutely nowhere.

I taught him myself with phonographix (reading reflex.)

I do think the LMB is an excellent program and if you have the money go for it. If money is tight you could start with phonographix and see how far you get.

Don’t waste your money on private tutors that do the same thing he gets at school that isn’t working to begin with. It is just a waste.

>I wasted alot of money on sylvan and private tutors that got us absolutely nowhere.

I absolutely agree and think you should avoid Sylvan (well that part I agree with anyway). I think I provide some guidelines for looking for private tutors. There is a lot of difference between private tutors like Victoria or myself (for example) and some college kid that likes children.
(Or retired teacher that doesn’t know jack about reading).

>Don’t waste your money on private tutors that do the same thing he gets at school that isn’t working to begin with. It is just a waste.[/quote]

I think the key words are “that do the same thing he gets in school”.
One of the advantages (if you can afford it) of the LMB centers is you know what you will be getting and they have kind of done the quality control for you. Finding a string of poor tutors might be more expensive in the long run, but if you do your homework really well on a particular tutor— you can come out nicely. But it does take more leg work on your part, you need to study here (see the resources), ask lots of questions, etc. You can’t just look in the phone book under tutors and expect to find anyone.

—des

Ok, I have some more guidelines:
Ask HOW the tutor intends to work with your child. There isn’t exactly a correct answer, but there are some incorrect ones. You are looking for someone who starts at the beginning, teaches phonemic awareness, breaks things down into easier parts, teaches sounds, etc.

You run like crazy the other way if you hear I teach sight words, whole language (balanced literacy, etc.), “I make reading fun (or a game)”(This is hard work— nothing wrong with a game at the end to reinforce skills but learning to read, esp for an ld reader is hard work. The tutor should not be afraid of drill, hard work and so forth.), “I go over his skills from school work”, etc. OR someone who has no clear cut way of teaching reading or can’t define it anyway. I don’t mean the person has to be erudite and eloquent about it, but they should know what they are doing and how they are going to go about it. Also beware of anyone who gives the idea that she can “cure” your child. You also don’t want someone doing “regular phonics” (Phonics Game, etc.). If someone says “systematic” (and/or explicit) phonics that’s more what you are looking for.

Or you can go with the LMB folks, honestly it is a great program from what I have read here. I don’t think it would be the wrong thing but it is a more expensive option than a lot of people can afford.

HTH,

—des

my 2 cents:

You have gotten stellar advice. I would add ‘Reading Recovery’ to your list of Stay Away Froms.

I think you might get some good leads from the reading teachers-many of whom are good but are seeing kids 20 minutes a week when the child needs 2 hours a day! I would add -contact the district office head of reading or literacy; contact the local ld schools. keep asking. eventually you will keep hearing the same names from several sources and you step in with des’s questions.

Our experience - the first reading tutor was a bust; the second was an angel. She was a reading specialist with spec. ed certification and with an LD highschool son. Best money I have ever spent was on tutoring 4x a week during the summer. My child gained a year or so in 5 mweeks. We have never looked back. She is in 8th grade now and won the schoolwide summer reading program. She still has some issues-writing is begining to get where it should be but we still work on organization and prioritizing. She will always be wired somewhat differently but she is coping independently in 8th grade.

welcome to the long haul of educating our kids. Good for you for clueing in so early in the game.

Thanks mmm! :-)
I agree about the early start. I am working with a kid who is 7 right now. I wish they were all 7! (OTOH the local Orton gang— I’m not trained in the same program they all are— want them later. I can’ t understand that!) Go to someone who wants to work with your child early like this.
IMO, there are a lot of secondary problems, like multiple failures, you don’t have to deal with. The kids that age don’t think they are stupid, yet.

—des

Hi!
I haven’t had too much time to visit this board lately (because of a recent move and spending any extra time researching seizures and temporal lobe processing - I found a great epilepsy info board!).

But, I took my son to LMB last year prior to, and during, winter break (he was in 4th grade at the time). Prior to that I had done Reading Reflex and a lot of other home-based remediation programs. Both RR and LMB were wonderful. I personally feel RR is a great program to do prior to LMB’s Seeing Stars (that’s if LIPS isn’t necessary). I think RR is more auditory while SS helps with visual memory.

But I think if LMB is convenient and affordable for your family, it’s a wonderful program. I’d definitley do it again.

HI, At the end of last summer, before my daughter started 3rd grade, her friend who also had reading problems started a LMB based program and in 3.5 weeks (17 days) went from not being able to read “brat” if told the word “rat” then put a “b” before the word, to reading at a third grade level. She continued on Sat’s (for 3 hours most sat’s) until Dec and now no longer needs reading help. I started my daughter and she went 7 days+ 2 saturdays then we stopped since I thought school plus sat was just too much for her. I did not see any change, but I admit it was not long enough to determine whether the recommended 10 weeks would have worked. However, I didn’t want to spend all my money on the program and then find it did not work and not be able to afford a different program. This program is very expensive. Instead I had my daughter tested again and the psychologist suggested frequent tutoring for 30 - 60 minutes and said that a learning disability will take years of the proper tutoring to overome.