Learning Rx, PACE, BrainSkills

Maja,

Thank you so much for your reply! I was wondering if anyone, anywhere, had any experience. Your experience makes sense. LearningRx touts there program as a magic bullet that cures everything from dsylexia to ADHD. I realize that this is probably not true.

We did sign up for the program desperately hoping for some help. My son scored high in the reading/auditory processing area (he is a good reader and speller), but low in processing skills, logic/reasoning, and long and short term memory. So we are only doing ThinkRx, not ReadingRx. I assume that what you did is similiar or the same as doing both. In that case, you did get a good price. To do both at a LearningRx center, I believe it is around $8000.

We are one week into the program so I have no results yet.

Thanks again.

Penny

I’m new to this forum and ‘am a student in Eudcational Assisstant Prog. Would you shade me some lights about Learning Rx that your son will be going in to? thnx

Please clarify what you’re a student of.

LearningRx is the new, updated, franchised version of PACE. It was developed by Dr. Gibson, I believe. Please google it and you will find info. A home product, BrainSkills is also sold, but it is not as thorough so I have been told. You can very this product at Brainskills.com. Also, it is somewhat difficult to implement.

I’d love to hear your opinion after your search!

Penny

Penny,

Last year beginning in August we did both PACE and Master The Code. We started with PACE and did it for eight weeks before beginning Master The Code.
The providers gave us different options. We chose to work in their office two days a week and at home four days a week. This was the least expensive and was still almost as much as you said you were going to pay. We were assigned homework and it was just a matter of sitting down and doing it. It was a major time commitment on our part (1 hour a day, six days a week) and it was extremely difficult to squeeze in. We managed at least 5 days a week and sometimes six. And at the end of the program in December they told us it would take about six months to see the improvement.

My son was 11 when we did this and even though it was a lot of work it became a challenge for him to beat himself. Since the exercises aren’t like regular homework it was somewhat of a diversion from the normal routine. There is a game called SET that is a visual perception game. At the end of PACE he couldn’t beat my husband but he almost reached the adult level. He never did get extremely fast at doing the exercises but he got better and more accurate over time.

I also made it clear to the teachers that I felt this was as important if not more important than school and would not sacrifice the time required to do this to get homework done. If necessary, homework would be skipped or turned in late.

After the program I wasn’t really impressed. I didn’t regret spending the money because my son was much more confident with his abilities but I can’t say that we saw much improvement. After school started this fall though, both my husband and I noticed that my son is a better more fluent reader than he was last year and how he is aware of spelling. (This was 8 -1/2 months after finishing the program.) He still reads pretty slow and doesn’t read fluently but it is a noticeable improvement over where we were last year. Last night we sat down together and he read from his health book. He didn’t whine about it and he could read it. He is even willing to sit down and read to his younger siblings willingly. In fact, tonight he sat down and read Curious George Goes to the Hospital in its entirety without asking once if he could stop now. Granted he is in seventh grade and its a children’s book but for us it is a major step forward.

Is it worth $3700? We spent close to that for PACE and Master The Code and I still think it is a lot of money but I would say it was worth it. For us the “Kit for both PACE and Master The Code” was $300 and we paid about $84.00 an hour for the trainer who wasn’t even a qualified professional just someone who was trained after her children went through the program.

My frustration with the whole exercise was when we were done with the program there was nobody who could say to me here is a good next step. So here I am now looking for the next step. Since we finished PACE and Master the Code I read Sally Shaywitz book and have decided my son probably has Dyslexia. So now I’m going to get him tested. The next step will be where to go from there. He still needs help.

If you want more information post here and I’ll see if I can help.

Maja Wells

Penny,

It sounds like we got a pretty good deal. The place we went to said they were a non-profit learning center. The gentleman who ran the place told me they did it to keep costs down.

My son’s biggest problem seems to be reading, spelling, slow processing and putting thoughts into words and on paper. He also struggles with inattentiveness.

I’ve noticed since we’ve done PACE and Master The Code that his ability to do homework continuously without being distracted has also improved.

You’re right PACE or whatever it is now called is not a magic bullet but in our case it seemed to help some. But remember it took awhile to see any results. Even my husband noticed it.

We went for sixteen weeks and never actually got to the adult level in any of the activities they have you do. In reality we could probably continue to work on it at home until we reach the adult level but it was all we could do to complete sixteen weeks and be successful. (I have three other children.)

Good luck, if you have as good of results as we did you will see improvement but it won’t be the magic bullet we are all looking for.

Maja Wells

Whew! Maja, I tutor kids in the same situation as your son. If only I could get parents to do ONE hour a week, much less six! I generally get two hours a week with the kids and no other work. I see at least as much improvement in fluency as you have seen, within a few months on average; if we kept it up to the $3700 level, the kids would be above grade level and flying high. Now, I am not touting this as a cure for anything; simple proven teaching methods and materials and a commitment to work through it. I am not selling anything, still sending out my outlines for free.

If you want to try a different approach, email me for the outlines at
[email protected]