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Lindamoo-Bell system versa the Wilson system

Submitted by an LD OnLine user on

Hello,
It was suggested to me that my Child need or would benifit from the Lindamood-Bell program before the Wilson system. What is the difference between them and can you explain how I can explain it to my school.
Thanks a bunch
Willow :?

Submitted by des on Thu, 08/28/2003 - 5:31 AM

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Hi,

I would expect that that would be a logical progression. Lindamood Bell (probably the LiPs— Phoneme sequencing program) is what they are thinking of. This program divides the language down to phonemes (smallest parts of speech— sound like “p”; “ck”; “ae”; etc.). They teach how these are formed in the mouth thru touch, looking, etc. They have names for sounds like lip poppers (p, b); etc. and the kids learn these. They learn how to discriminate these in isolation and go on to a couple sounds in a row to words. It is very highly structured to the point of being scripted and very intensive.

Wilson is a derivation of Orton Gillingham and they also work with phonemes but it is pretty much assumed that the kid hears these because after the first few lessons (or maybe at the first lesson) they are combined into controlled vocabulary words. The student learns to listen for the no. of sounds in a word by tapping them using the thumb and fingers. And also to spell words in the same manner—listen for the no. of sounds— tap out the sounds and find the letters that form those sounds. It is very structured in the form of the lesson and also the sounds (vowels, consonants, digraphs, etc.) are introduced in a specific order. The student reads and dictates carefully controlled vocabulary. They also learn “rules” for spelling and reading. For example; “f, l, s” are bonus letters and if you have a word ending in a short vowel and one of these it is usually doubled. That sort of thing. Generally older kids (over 4th grade) are taught Wilson (although there is now a younger version).

The commonalities are that both systems are highly structured; teach more advanced ways of thinking about language/phonemes; break down reading into phonemes.

I’d say Wilson is more a complete program whereas LiPs concentrates on the hearing of phonemes. Once the kid does that they can move onto something else. *If* the kid cannot hear phonemes, it is unlikely they will progress in anything too far.

—des

Submitted by Sue on Sat, 08/30/2003 - 11:38 PM

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HOw old is your child? Wilson was originally put together for older students. It is also more of a packaged program for groups than LiPS.

Frankly, I would want to know who was providing the service — either would have a lot of benefit if delivered by an experienced and highly trained person and would lose a lot of their benefit if they were new at it, hadn’t had much training, and/or your child is one of the more puzzling ones.

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