Can LD be "created"?

The answer to your question is, YES! I am a special educator that really doesn’t believe that at least 75% of special ed kids are there because they aren’t taught. This is my mind set when I start a new school year or in my private business. I remediate “learning disabled” kids so that they can have a future. Look at it this way, if the school doesn’t teach reading, spelling. grammar, the process for writing and basic skills in general, how can a child be disabled? Whole language proponents believe that reading like speaking is natural, inate in the child. This, of course, is nonsense. Spelling and sentence structure even for our gifted and talented students are very poor in our high school. I remediate older students in my tutoring business in reading and writing. Spelling is another problem that I really haven’t been able to remediate fully when the child is older. The kids can spell the words closer to correct spelling so that spell check works. The younger the child the better for remediation. The programs that I use: Phono-Graphix reading method ( do a search on it at this site); Step Up To Writing published by Sopris West; Stevenson Grammar; Inspiration computer program for pre-writing (Go to Inspiration.com for a free 30 day download); Visualizing and Verbalizing and On Cloud Nine for comprehension techniques, if needed, by Lindamood-Bell and Language Wise by Carmen and Geoffrey McGuinness. If you want more information about these programs, please email me directly and I will help you.

It has been agreed for sometime that a phonological processing disorder is at the core of, at least, reading LD. We are referring to reading, I believe, as P-G is a reading program. This deficit manifests in extreme difficulty with processing sounds in words. Instruction requires intensive attention to the sounds within words: learning to hear them, segmenting sounds in words, and blending sounds to create words. This instruction works.

Now, there is increasing debate on whether or not there are other issues that are factors in reading LD. One being rapid automated naming (RAN). The thinking is that RAN deficits manifest in extremely slow reading rates that are very difficult to remediate.

A third area that has been pooh-poohed for years is that of visual processing issues. There is certainly some evidence that these are legitimate LD concerns for a significant group of students who are identified LD.

This is where my theory comes in, though it is by no means unique to me. A child who has a single deficit, say in phonological processing, has relative strengths in visual processing and RAN. With appropriate instruction this group makes good progress. This is the easiest deficit, when singular, to remediate. This is the deficit to which, I believe, Shay speaks. This is the child who can be “made LD” when appropriate instruction is not provided.

When a child has a double-deficit, RAN and phonological processing, remediation is manyfold more challenging and often not in any way complete, so to speak. The reason is that these students do not have an area of strength to use to work from.

Add to this the plausible visual processing deficits and you may find that you have a small few youngsters who have very serious reading disabilities. P-G or O-G or any other good program will help, but you may never get a totally remediated reader who can read ON GRADE level with grade level fluency.

The double and perhaps triple, -deficit students are by no means created. They are alive and well in my resource room, in small numbers, as I can attest to with psychoeducational test data and a host of other data as well.

Spelling—my dd is reads well above grade level but is a poor speller. A couple of things I am considering—1) some basic phonographix work to see if she has the phoeneme thing down, 2) a home spelling program—the most highly praised on these boards is Sequential Spelling available at avco.com, and/or 3) making her learn to type—Read, Write, and Type is a fairly pricey computer typing program, but unlike others it teaches typing through the sound the letter makes rather than the letter name. I have heard a number of comments to the effect that many children’s spelling improves when they learn to type and am thinking of testing the hypothesis.

Writing—I have done a fair amount of research on this on the homeschooling forums but can’t yet report fully on personal experience. What I have seen is that schools (whole language or not) teach writing by giving writing assignments but don’t give instruction on how one can go about structuring the writing. With my ds, I have used Inspiration, a computer program, on a free trial download from the company. Ds thought it was pretty neat, but it really was not structured enough (for him) to translate into everyday writing assignments. Also, to really use it you have to know how to type—otherwise, you have to rely on someone else (like mother) to do the typing.

I am now planning to use the Institute for Excellence in Writing program. It consists of taped lectures for teachers on a method for teaching writing. It comes with some written materials, but they are not comprehensive. They also have a taped intensive workshop for kids—about ten hours running time. My 11 year-old did two workshop tapes on his own—this is the first type of instruction he’s been able to do on hiw own and I think this built up his confidence. I will have to supplement with a lot of practice but at least IEW provides a practical framework. Their website is writing-edu.com. Check out the newletter section and read the article “Writing Without Tears” to get an idea of what the approach is.

Another program I have seen acclaimed on the homeschooling forums is Writeshop, aimed at around 11 years old and up. But many of those who like it recommend starting with IEW first.

My son was diagnosed with phonological processing, visual processing and rapid naming.

PG seemed to confuse him. Too many sounds to remember. (visually) We’ve done vision therapy which helped.

I may return to an OG based program. That helped more.

We’re stuck at a second grade level.

Do you think that the LIPs intensive at the Lindamood Bell clinic would be worth the time and money?

Anything that you’ve seen help these kids?

Just good teaching, that uses multi-modalities (tracing letters, sounds, words, closing eyes and visualizing letter sounds, words….), progressing slowly and reviewing daily. He’ll get that part, it just may take time. I have read P-G and don’t think the program is adequate for a significant LD such as you describe, but it could be used with adaptations, the basis is pretty sound.

I think the difficulties you describe with teaching writing are because writing is so very difficult to “teach.” Writing requires the synchronization of many, many different skills. I have not found a foolproof way to TEACH writing that guarantees progress. There are techniques, but putting it all together is very difficult for some.

PK,

I just wanted to tell you that you aren’t alone with your child. Mine has the same deficits. He also has CAPD and sensory integration defiicits. It is a tough road, there is no doubt.

The approach we have taken with some success is to try to reduce his underlying deficits since it is obvious that he has no real strengths to draw upon (except his curiousity about everything). Neuronet, a program based around the vestibular system, has really helped organize him and helped with word retrieval. His reading speed is now about 95 words a minute cold—which is a big improvement over a year or so ago when it was about 40 words a minute.

We have used PG fairly successfully but it has taken a lot of repetition and I know that the other therapy we have done as well is part of its success. My son is about a semester behind in reading now—first semester third grade reading and in a second semester third grade class. We did PACE last summer which helped with visual processing speed and some with auditory processing. It would have helped more had we been able to complete the auditory processing part but he just couldn’t do it. We have since done the The Listening Program which helped him with his ability to learn to manipulate sounds. I am burned out though and have found a LIPS trained person for the summer for him in hopes of conquering that part of the puzzle.

I think the Lindamood programs are very good but besides the high cost of the center based programs, my son could never have tolerated the length of the sessions. We did a one week PG intensive in Orlando and he had a very hard time with it for the morning. You need to consider what your child is like in that way as well.

Personally, I’d see if you can find a private tutor instead but I know from personal experience that can be very difficult. I have found two LIPS trained people now but two years ago I couldn’t find a soul.

Beth

Anyway, keep trudging.

Dear pk, I would try PG again since he has had vision therapy. I have taught some children that have the similar problems. Did you or someone trained in PG work with him? I think that all you have to do is slow the program down. There isn’t any rule that you have to go fast. I go fast only if the testing tells me that I can.

Inspiration is great for prewriting a but has to be used with another program that teaches the student the process of writing. The program that I use for this is Step Up To Writing. As for spelling, PhonoGraphix has a spelling program that correlates with their reading program called ” The Super Speller”. It is very good teaching the basic patterns for spelling as does PG does for reading. The program that I like for spelling after the super speller is a program called Spelling Power sold by Castlemoyle books. They are on line at castlemoyle.com. The reason that I like it is that it teaches the most frequently used words organized by phonetic principles and spelling rules and is multi-sensory in nature.

PK,

I know some others with children who didn’t learn to read adequately with PG who have success with Master the Code, the reading program of PACE. It involves a lot of drill and repetition that some children need.

I also have had more success with PG with my son by using more repetition than the book suggests. I took my cue from his PG trained teacher this year who actually gave them tests on the code.

Beth

Jody,

If you read back posts on this bb you will read teachers from as far away as Australia saying that the 5th graders can’t handle reading their texts. The consensus seems to be that wo learning the phonetic system the whole language kids fall apart at about this grade level so your daughter is NOT homefree. These kids do Not have a ld and you’ve fallen into a semantic controversy on this board, but bottom line trust your instincts. It sounds like your gut feeling is your daughter needs to learn the same system as has helped your son.It could mean the difference between enjoying reading and school as she gets older or turning off. I don’t know if you enjoy reading or not, but what gripes me most is that several generations have been deprived of the power and joy of reading due to bad teaching. For no other reason I’d get my daughter into the other school

Shay, I checked out Step Up to Writing’s website and it appears to provide a clear way to structure paragraphs. However, it would not seem to address a core problem of my ds, which he expresses as: “I don’t know what to write about.” IEW attempts to do that by starting out with the application of the key word concept to another writer’s text, which the student then rewrites using just the key words. My ds has written some pretty decent paragraphs using this technique, giving him confidence. I don’t think he could have done this using Inspiration/Step Up as he would have shut down early on when faced with (to him) the overwhelming task of thinking what to say every step of the paragraph. If you have a minute to check out IEW’s website (www.writing-edu.com), in particular the newsletter article “Writing Without Tears,” I’d be interested in your reactions.

Thanks Beth.

I think lots of repitition is what we need. We needed that just to learn the individual letters and sounds.

I just want to make sure my son sees success. He tends to quit very easily.

PG was too fast. I know their theory is to keep going and introduce a new sound even if you haven’t mastered the sound you’re working on. This is what caused confusion for my son. He felt like he wasn’t learning.

Also, the writing (mapping) part was hard. The hands on word building was great for him. But he hated the writing — and didn’t seem to get it.

Do you know if LIPs is different from PG. I know lips trains how to feel the sounds. Is it more hands-on than PG?

My post on teaching LD students tells of a study I read recently. A group of double-deficit LD type students and nonLD students were given a task to learn, one that involved processing visual input with speed and accuracy (similar to reading, but not reading). The LD group needed 100x as many trials to learn the task less well than the nonLD.

This information is important to us. We know that many of our students don’t just learn skills in a day or a week. The most deficient LD students need so many repetitions there are scarcely any programs that offer this much. Multi-sensory teaching probably cuts down the necessary repetitions, but even if it cuts them in half, we are still talking an incredible number of repetitions for mastery.

Pk,

I think LIPS is more multisensory than PG which is an advantage to a kiddo who has serious problems. The feeling the sounds provides another channel for a child to learn what they need to learn. LIPS is also slower and more methodical than PG, although PG can be adapted, as Shay suggests.

PG works for most kids but that is little help if it isn’t your kid. A couple of years ago I got the advice to try PG first but if it doesn’t work RUN to LIPS. I think LIPS is a particularly good alternative if your child is still having trouble remembering sounds, despite all your hard work with him.

Beth

Hi Beth, As I said before, PG can be what you make it. If you need it slowed down, slow it down. Spend more time on blending and segmenting. The problem that I have with LIPS is the advanced code. For you who use LIPS, how do you teach the advanced code? What I find in most kids is that they think that each letter represents a sound and this is one of the major stumbling block. They understand it if you break it down to the different combinations that represent a sound, like PG does but not with the old phonics rules and exceptions component. I have remediated kids that didn’t do well with LIPS and Wilsons and that was the stumbling block. They still thought that” though” was a jumble of letters because decoding each letter made no sense. I have remediated children that had no clue as to how to decode words, dog was sl/i/t/ (severe auditory processing difficulties) to them and for these children I had to spend maybe three weeks on the basic code with a lot of practice at home, but they still ‘got it’ with PG, just take your time.

Hi,

Just another Mum’s take on this but, I agree if PG doesn’t work then run to LIPS. The follow up to LIPS is Seeing Stars for symbol imagery. I think You either have to do LIPS and Seeing Stars or follow with PG. LB people will tell you LIPS is not enough by itself ; that you need to follow with Seeing Stars. I think having made the phonemic awareness connections with LIPS then kids are at square one and can go on to learn to decode and as long as you keep up the LIPS connections and use them either program will work. Theoretically a kid who’s had LIPS could then get the followup CD for home practice and go back and try PG .
My experience with my son is that his phonemic awareness is so low that until he finds a way to make those connections we’re not going anywhere.

Shay,

We have taken our time. Our son went to a PG intensive after first grade. We have worked with him for two years using PG and this year he had a PG trained resource teacher. He has learned to read. He can easily read second grade material. His instructional level is third grade and he is finishing third grade.

We have never been able to get him to easily do the auditory processing type exercises in Reading Reflex. I understand this ability is important to mastering multisyllable words which he can’t decode except for the very common ones which he now recognizes by sight. I worked very hard with him last summer doing PACE AP exercises and really burned both of us out. We did The Listening Program this year and these same exercises were much easier. If we had done TLP before PACE perhaps we would have been able to get the AP piece in place. But I am really beyond being able to do it at this point.

LIPS offers the advantage of a lot of work with sound manipulation. Also the teacher is a slt who has worked in a pilot program in the schools with the most disabled students with success.

I really didn’t know about the issue with advanced code but I wouldn’t think he would forget what we he has had drilled into him for two years. Well, maybe he will, given my son, but we will be there to remind him!!

Basically, I think there are still some auditory processing issues blocking my son’s progress. I am hoping that the LIPS training will help get him past that.
Perhaps if you were here you could get him past it using PG. But we haven’t been able to or his teacher at school.

The other really good thing is that the SLT is also going to teach him V & V. So I am hopeful. I am going to follow up V & V, as you have suggested before, with Language Wise. He is having major problems with inferences ect and hoping that maybe we can begin to get a handle on two problems this summer.

I really appreciate the insights you bring to this board.

Beth

You don’t need P-G to teach the students what you are suggesting. I don’t use P-G. In my advanced code work, I stress chunks of words. I mimic what it sounds like to try to sound out every letter of every multisyllable word, the students laugh at me. I have already taught vowel digraphs and diphthongs, so they don’t believe every letter stands for one sound. They are never actually taught that; consider the final “silent” “e” on many words.

I stress looking for recognizable chunks. We systematically learn common prefixes and suffixes. I use examples like, “THE, when you look at this word you automatically say or think-“the.” The same goes for word parts like: “ture,” “tion,” and many more. They learn these chunks just as well as they learn “the.” They learn to seek out known word chunks when confronted with a long and unknown word. They learn that if they can eliminate some chunks right away, the sounding out task becomes less daunting.

I love teaching advanced code, many students who have double-deficits or possibly triple-deficits struggle, but they improve a great deal.

I purchased Seeing Stars about a year ago. I think whether a kid needs it depends on their profile. Lindamood developed Seeing Stars because a portion of kids were not getting automatic after being trained in LIPS. These kids lacked symbol imagery. Obviously some kids did fine before it was ever developed—because they didn’t have deficits in this area.

Now my son, of course, doesn’t see letters. I found the techniques easy to teach and very compatible with PG, which we were using. But then I realized that my son did not have the sound to symbol down automatically so it was a bit premature.

Beth

I teach the advanced code using mostly LIPS. I actually love it. Once you’re past the auditory discrimination part of the program, the rest really is all about syllable chunking. I haven’t yet had any problem teaching kids to advance beyond each individual sound into chunks of sounds. Through LIPS they already know that sounds come in chunks of letters, (for example, /ch/ is one sound).

I love the multisyllable work in LIPS. The ending grid, which employs most of the common suffices, is a really ingenious method for learning them.

I teach the LIPS system of syllable breaking - open syllables, closed syllables-but then on top of that I also use the more traditional O-G method to some of my students whom I may feel need a little more repetition.

I spend a bit of time on the open/closed syllable work using the LIPS cards and letting the kids explore making their own multisyllable nonsense words and reading them to me. They LOVE this. Many of them like to invent their own really long word using all the syllable cards. They’re very proud when they can read it back to me.

Sounds great to me. We get so “hung up” on this program is better than that program! The program is nothing more than a tool. The P-G camp is one of the most biased I have encountered. I like to just teach the child, with the tools I have and those I create.

Another useful product on the market for remediating children’s reading when they have missed important stages in the development of phonics is the Lexia Learning Systems software. This was developed based on Ortin-Gillingham principles. The home version is very inexpensive. The child works at his or her own pace and the program automatically cycles the child back if s/he shows the need for more repetition. The work is done in the form of games, but the screen presentation is very low-tech and low-key in order not to distract.

I think “uk mum” has hit it right on the button when she says this is a semantic issue on this board.

There are “innate” LD’s, genuine extreme differences of neurological processing and/or hearing and/or vision. These are often very difficult to remediate, and, as many excellent teachers on this board have suggested, you may needs a hundred times as many repetitions as a student without an LD (so we just do it, and don’t give up!)

Then there is the normal continuum of human abilities in any area whatsoever — people don’t divide into “can” and “can’t” groups, but a continuous sliding scale. If you give a test of any ability at all, from reading multisyllable words to balancing on one foot with eyes closed (I fail this one) to 3-D visualization to swimming to social skills and on and on, some kids will score 100% and some will score zero and some will score at every possible level in between. The choice of what to call “normal” and what to call “disabled” is an arbitrary line. Different social/political/educational choices and pressures move that line up or down. The difference between a “low average” student and a “disabled” student is often a matter of which test was chosen, the weather the day the test was given, a virus, or a bully on the way to school.

Then there is the issue of bad teaching and, as you have discovered, totally ineffective curriculum.

Bad teaching and bad curriculum cannot make a child neurologically disabled. But it CAN cause much the same symptoms — poor skills or none at all, language and learning deprivation developing out of lack of input, and social and personal difficulties developing from failure and isolation. And the same methods of *good* teaching can work with the “average” or “low average” student as well as the “disabled” student. The more severely disabled student, or the double-deficit student, will be the one who needs even more repetition; but repetition will also help the others get their confusion straightened around.

Shay’s and Anitya’s common-sense advice, to get tried-and-true phonetically based reading and spelling programs and to repeat as much as necessary until the student masters the skills, is the method that will work and be the best for your child.

Hi
I purchased Seeing Stars first too but then realized too advanced for my son. He’s starting LIPS with tutour and we’ll go back to Seeing Stars after summer. After finishg both of those youngest son will be ready to begin PG and will see where oldest is.
Have you done LIPS with your son?

I am hiring a tutor to teach him LIPS and V & V this summer. I tried very hard to find him a LIPS tutor two years ago but there wasn’t anyone in my area at the time. So we did PG with some success. My son can read now but I am hoping that LIPS might take him past some of the AP issues that are still blocking his progress.

Beth

Basically a specific LD means you’ve got these big honking highs and lows in the different ways people think and learn. This often shows up as bigtime subtest scatter on the WISC.

That’s actually just as possible with a kiddo hwo doesn’t have any subtest scores higher than 9. Lots of kids with lower IQs have significant relative strenghts and weaknesses that it’s a good idea to address as LDs… but understanding the whole picture of the kiddo.

ONe of the more fascinated discoveries of the NIH research on phonemic awareness and “raw” reading potential was that basically it’s independent of IQ. Just has nothign to do with it. Correlates about as well as the ability to broad jump. NOw, as soon as you grow the kiddos a few years and factor in comprehension, things start changing — though if you intervene for the kids who need help, then that gap isn’t as big, because intervention boosts the overal language development, and performance of those kinds of intellectual tasks are more likely to keep pace wiht peers through the years. It’s the “nurture” part of “nature vs. nurture.”

The first work with LD kids all started because you had kids with this undeniable gap between IQ and what they were able to learn. Not to put too fine a point on it, nice children from good families couldn’t cut it. (Not to cast aspersions on them, at all — it just took that level of contrast to get people to look past those magic IQ scores.)

As things evolved, many definitions of LD included “avg or above average IQ.” But if you look more closely at eligibility requirements for the “LD” label in a school, basically the kiddo has to have learning problems that are *not* explained by low IQ. If they were, they put the MR label on the kiddo and serve him there.

About half of my “LD” kids could have been dubbed “slow learners.”

Hi Beth,
We were enormously lucky that a friend of family (retired teacher who was homeschooling pioneer 15 yrs ago got involved thru trying to tutour our son and got trained in LIPS method in U.S. .) She’s starting with him today and he loves her so so enthused. Have really high hopes. We went to new LB clinic in london and had son tested there. Director said they are no longer reccommending LIPS alone but told us son would need Seeing Stars as well… (That’s 8 wks of LIPS 4 h a day at £15k then another 6 wks of Seeing Stars at about £12 k plus expenses of getting son in to London daily and juggling 3 yr old adds another couple thousand)
LIPS is all we and most people could possibly afford at the clinic so why theoretically I think unless you can find a wondrful tutour most people might want to go back and try PG -just for cost effectiveness. Since we already have the SS kit and a wonderful tutour we’l l go on with Seeing Stars.
Tutour coming over sat by Canadien mum with 16 yr old son who is brilliant but can’t read despite every program she’s tried. She’d never heard of APD or LIPS. She cried when our friend told her about APD and that LIPS might help. She’s got other kids lined up to start when she goes back to U.S. I know there are so mzny equally talented peope out there that would make great tutours if there was just a way to train them-so many kids could be helped. Sorry , this long. Good luck with your son. I just bet he’s going to take off after doing LIPS. You’ve prepared him so well.

Interesting phrase “great honking hi’ s and lows”. Had consultation on tests from Lindamood-Bell in london last week. Son has almost 0 score on phonemic awareness -letter recognition tests and as high as it is possible for a 6 1/2 yr old to score on vocab and comprehension- up to almost 20 yr old vocab. Director said he gave Tester oral dissertation on Caesar’s conquest of Gaul just to top it off.
Thank God for that Oral memory, but I think with just one more kink in his processing he’d be written off. Certainly not be helped to his potential. That brilliant mind left to it’s own devices with no guidance or recognition would certainly turn to mischief. There has to be a better way to find these kids than IQ tests.

Interesting that they do LIPS for such a long time before beginning Seeing Stars. As a tutor who sees kids anywhere from 2 - 4 times a week for only a half hour or an hour at a time, I get them going on LIPS and then, just a few weeks later (remember: this is a MUCH less intensive schedule than the LMB regional centers) I begin to include Seeing Stars into the LIPS program. It’s very easy to combine the two. And they reinforce each other.

In using PG, we went quickly through the areas my son seemed to know or was proficient in (the early chapters) and did a lot of repetition with Advanced Code (which is an area he had a more difficult time with).

I don’t know how much repetition your son had, but I worked approximately 4 hours a day (2 in the morning and 2 at night) and would repeat the words in prior lists over and over and over in word analysis exercises. It took us a little over a month (weekends included!) to do one chapter (Advanced code) at this pace. I don’t know if that’s quick or slow, but I only moved forward when it seemed like my son had mastered the previous material.

Although we only did word sorting once with each list (that seemed sufficient for him), we did a huge amount of word analysis each time. When my son had difficultly moving forward I would just repeat material (over and over when necessary. Some sound symbols were much harder for him than others). This repetition seemed to help.

Currently we’re working on multisyllable management (only about 1 hour per day since he’s back in school) and this has been a little more difficult. However, he is starting to get it. Whenever we get to a level that’s too hard, I step back and repeat old material or try to figure a simpler way to present it. This seems to help. The other day he “chunked” a difficult word he happened to see in the market and I heaped the praise on him!!! :-)

Also, when he’s reading through his school book I keep a dry erase board and marker next to us so if he comes to a word that he’s having difficulty decoding or chunking, we’ll analize it on the dry erase board.

I don’t know if sharing our experience helps, but when starting PG I was very curious to know how other people were presenting it to their children or students.

I suppose it’s because they have to be sure to produce the spectacular results that they charge for. They may vary this according to the child. The friend tutouring son wasjust trained but she is thinking she may want to start SS with him sooner than she’d thought. So in training may suggest that you can do this??
And then this is from London clinic which is literally just opened and “clinicians” only just trained by American trainers brought over for a week. So …

LMB has been tinkering with their own program right from the beginning. One thing for sure that can be said about them is they research themselves well. They carefully record the data on the results of their own programs They do alter their timetables fairly frequently as they measure the results.

The latest I’ve heard is to not spend a very long time on LIPS before incorporating Seeing Stars and V/V. When I trained (with one of the originators of the program) they said to begin LIPS, get almost all the consonant pairs and vowel circle presented before beginning Seeing Stars. I did this initially but then began to introduce Seeing Stars within a month of beginning LIPS. I think it works well. When I’m working with a student on the blocks (it’s the real auditory discrimination part of LIPS), I have them not only say the sounds and make the changes, but also trace the letter on each block. This would work the visual memory as well as the auditory.

I hear now that LMB is recommending people begin Seeing Stars and V/V as early as possible. Seeing Stars is basically V/V but pertains to visualizing symbols as opposed to visualizing pictures in V/V. The philosophy is exactly the same. (Same with Cloud Nine, the math program).

Joan,
You mentioned that:
>> Seeing Stars is basically V/V but pertains to visualizing symbols as opposed to visualizing pictures in V/V. The philosophy is exactly the same. <<

I’m really curious about both of these programs and was wondering more specifically about the differences between them. Do they cover similar material? In what instances would one be be chosen over the other?

Thanks!

Seeing Stars is strictly a spelling program. V/V is a language comprehension program. Both use the same philosophy.

The belief is that some people make poor mental images while reading. In some cases, it means that they’re simply reading words but not paying attention to the content. Have you ever been tired and not concentrating and find you have to go back and force yourself to slow down and reread a passage? That’s because during the first read, you weren’t making any images in your mind about what you read. Some people make no images, some make weak images, some get carried away in imaging the details, some image only the last bit read. There are various reasons for these problems but a very good solution is strengthening the ability to make images.

V/V has a method to do this. Besides strengthening the mental image itself, V/V also goes on to develop higher order thinking skills, such as recognizing the main idea from the details, etc.

Seeing Stars, as a spelling program, came as a result of the LMB people recognizing that, despite intensive work with some students on their LIPS program (auditory discrimination/decoding/phonics all rolled into one), some of their students continued to be poor spellers. At the time, LMB had the V/V program, saw how well it worked in helping people develop strong images, and decided to try using the same techniques in imaging symbols (letters). Up to that point, they thought that the V/V program would address symbol imagery but realized that it was actually a separate function of the brain. So Nanci Bell developed the Seeing Stars program to strengthen symbol imagery.

It includes lots of air writing as a way to solidify letter symbols in one’s brain. It also includes the use of cards, each with a nonsense word written on it. The student reads the card, the card is then hidden while the student air-writes the word while saying the letters. In order to build symbol imagery, the tutor asks the student questions like, “what’s the first letter? What’s the 3rd. letter? What’s the last letter? Spell the word backwards”, etc. The student is encouraged to look at the “ghost” that was written in the air to recall the letters.

The program goes on to include learning how to spell the 1000 most commonly used words (essentially a Dolch list) by using modifications of this method.

It seems to work quite well, especially when it’s done in conjunction with the LIPS program.