Reading Reflex

and were very pleased. My 10yo daughter’s scores on the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test went from grade level 3.4 to 5.8 on Word ID, and from 2.9 to 12.7 on Word Attack.

In terms of just raw observation, she appeared to gain at least a year in reading ability — perhaps closer to two. It got her over the “big hump” of advanced decoding skills.

My daughter does not have auditory processing problems. She has a history of vision problems (severe congenital astigmatism and severe developmental vision delays) and was diagnosed with “severely disordered phonological awareness” at age 9. At that time she scored Kindergarten level on the LAC, and was reading at grade level 2 according to the Gray — but two STD’s below the norm in rate and accuracy.

Prior to the Phono-Graphix intensive she had done Reading Reflex basic code at home with me, followed by 8 months of vision therapy and 3 months of PACE (Processing and Cognitive Enhancement, http://www.learninginfo.com). At the end of these interventions, before the PG intensive, we estimated her reading level at about beginning 4th grade level (at age 10).

Eleven months after the intensive, dd was tested by the school as reading at an ending 6th grade level (at age 11).

Mary

We went to Orlando when my son was 7. He has auditory processing problems, visual issues, word retrieval, and sensory integration issues. In other words, he is a complex case.

My husband actually took him but these are my impressions. They are a very caring, compentent bunch of people. I spoke to several people a couple times after that about what to do at home.

My son didn’t fall into the miracle category—the ones who come back reading on grade level. Now a year and a half later, he still isn’t on grade level but is close. For him, memory issues, AP, and word retrieval have been major challenges. My son really didn’t read when he went so that is a harder and probably not typical situation for an intensive. I think he also was quite young.

It is the only method we have used to teach reading, although we have done a lot of other therapy to address underlying deficits.

I think theat LMB is better for children with severe AP issues and would have been better for my son. It however wasn’t easily available. Now, he has a resource teacher (3rd grade) who has been trained in both PG and LMB who says he is past needing LMB.

On the other hand, PG is much faster and does work for the majority of children. It does have AP work in it, although not as at basic level as LMB. You really don’t know until you try.

You also could try and work with the book Reading Reflex first so that you can try and build a basis before you go. I think that would make the intensive more useful—if everything isn’t new like it was for my son. I also think the book is easy to follow except for the multi-syllable work.

We now, after other therapy, are returning to PG. I am reviewing the advanced code with him. It seems to be sticking this time, which is a combination of repetition, reducing his underlying deficits, and maturity.

Beth

Thanks for the info. I have done some PG with my son, two summers ago - I liked the results. He also has word retrieval problems - a “complete case.” I would like to have done LMB - but as you say, they don’t make it very available - or affordable. I’m still looking for a possible tutor in the Pittsburgh area, though, but I’m curious about your son’s teacher saying he was “beyond” LMB. I’m also investigating Orton-Gillingham - have you ever tried that?

Thanks again.

My son did PACE last summer and it incorporates a lot of PG and LMB into the auditory processing exercises. It emphasizes doing things fast and automatic enough—you use a metronome. By the end, my son consistently knew the differences between similar sounds like short e and i. One of the strengths of the LMB program is that it provides mouth positions for kids who have difficulty hearing the differences between sounds. My son now needs to remember the advanced code.

This is what you wouldn’t get with an OG approach. No, I have never tried it, although I did consider Wilson at one point. It just seemed so slow and with so much memory required—a real issue for my son.

My son now needs to remember the advanced code. We did lots of reading at the same level last year because of his fluency issues. One of the unintended side effects was that he forgot the advanced code. He went from knowing 80% to 50% when nonsense words were presented. At the same time though, his actually reading ability in terms of words recognized and fluency increased a year in about six months time. Still, he became a bit like an adult reader who recognizes a wide assortment of words but no longer knows how to sound them out. That is well and good but his reading was in effect stalled at a second grade level (he was starting third grade at the time).

Beth

… and some of them do a lot with the advanced code and syllable division patterns (much more than Reading Reflex; I have always considered that a relative weakness of RR).
You also might want to check out “Word Workshop” (http://www.thewordworkshop.com/)which is expressly for decoding longer words, especially for “graduates” of O-G programs. I have the book and rather like its approach to longer words (I’m getting the demo of the computer program & will post what I think of it).

Thanks. Actually, my son is pretty good at decoding, but has to sound out a lot and his fluency really suffers. I also rejected Wilson due to the amount of memorizing. I really think LMB’s LiPS program would be best - but I have not been able to locate a tutor in the area - it’s kind of a secret society. I’m not even sure were to look.

I’ll look into Word Workshop. What about Fastforward? It seems awfully time consuming - alot of hours for a boy who is also ADD - inattentive type.

Many SLP’s have training in LMB strategies. We have to keep up with the times and have to attend workshops to keep our certificates of clinical competency. I was trained in LMB programs before I even started my road to becoming an SLP. You may have better luck with an SLP than a regular ed teacher. LMB LiPS was actually created by Pat Lindamood a speech pathologist and her husband Charles Lindamood a linguist. LiPS is very strongly based in phonetics and speech pathology. The Vowel Circle that is taught in LiPS is almost the same vowel circle that is taught in phonetics to SLP’s in an undergrad phonetics class.

Sue,

I looked at the Word Workshop. It says for 5th grade and beyond and my son is only in third grade. Do you think PG approach is adequate through two syllable words? I can’t say I have a good handle on it yet (we still have not mastered advanced code) but asking in response to your statement about multi-syllable work being a weak point of PG.

Beth

Laura, I’m apologizing ahead of time if I’ve already answered your request for an LMB tutor. I know that someone posted it somewhere and I responded with some suggestions. Since many private tutors have gone to the LMB classes and are trained, the best route to finding one in your area might be to call the area private schools and ask around. They may know of tutors using LMB in your area.

The LMB people themselves, although they teach the training courses, will not recommend any one individual. All they’ll recommend is one of their regional centers. In part that’s good, because they have no way of knowing whether or not the folks they’ve trained are actually using the method correctly. But it makes it mighty hard to find a trained individual. The other route I’d take in a search is to contact neuropsychologists who work with children. Many of my students have been recommended to me through the area neuropsyches who are familiar with my work.

Hi Beth,

I work with PGx a lot, and I find that the approach taken to multisyllable words is exactly what the kids need and can understand. Pay close attention to the instructions as to how to approach multisyllable words and avoid mixing in the rules of other reading methods, rules which kids (and most adults) won’t use, even if they happen to know them.

Raise your expectations….I think you’ll be pleased…..Rod

For anyone interested, There will be a one-day intensive Phono-Graphix training workshop using the Word Works Kit at the Read America convention in New Orleans in April. The cost of the whole conference (Thurs. night thru 1 pm Sunday) is $265 and the PG workshop AND Word Work Kit (reproducible worksheets designed for classroom use) are included for FREE! For those already familiar with teaching reading somewhat (like me), the one day workshop might be a nice boost to help get started with PG! I just couldn’t pass up that deal, and I also appreciated not having to leave my family for the full 5 day training. Oh, and you have 6 months to pass the test if you want PG certification. If anyone is interested, the conference schedule is listed on the site: www.readamerica.net.

Janis

Laura,

You asked a question in one post about why a child would be beyond LB. I assume we are talking about LB LiPS program. When my child was evaluated in Nov., I was also told she was beyond LiPS. She already has most of the basic code as described in PG. They told me Seeing Stars would be right for her since it does have decoding work but is not as basic as LiPS. If your child is aleady able to sound out the words, perhaps he might be like my daughter and need to move on to Seeing Stars. However, I am choosing to try PG instead of Seeing Stars. I do plan on buying just the Seeing Stars manual to see if there are any other useful ideas in there, but I am going to concentrate on doing PG thoroughly first. My child has to have a program that does not have a lot of memorization of rules as that is one of her weaknesses. That is part of the appeal of PG to me.

The benefits of Fast ForWord are very debated. And $850 (and that’s doing it yourself, not with a SLP) is a LOT of money to spend on something that may or may not help. I’m waiting for a little more research before deciding.

But, a very inexpensive CD-rom that gives good practice in many auditory skills such as sound discrimination (phonics and phonological awareness), auditory memory, etc. is Earobics $59 (I think: www.earobics.com).

Janis