My almost 8 yr. old son complains that this pgm. (which he does with a tutor 2x weekly and with me 2-3x weekly) is “borrring”—although we are maintaining a quick pace (up to Chpt. 5 in 4 sessions, excluding the “environmental sounds” and “setting the climate” stage.) His tutor thinks he can be done the program within a month but wants to switch him to Barton before she’s quite finished LIPS because she feels he will be more receptive and it will cover a lot of the same material. Any suggestions on how to make this pgm. more appealing in the meantime? (The LIPS games seem more applicable to a large class and the font on the game cards is not the most readable.) We both end our sessions with a game (ex. Linguisystems)as a motivator, but any other ideas would be welcome.My other question is this. Is it possible my son is bored with this program because he doesn’t need it??? His assessment caseworker recommended it on the basis of the fact that his performance on the Rosner Auditory Analysis Test showed a weak score for his age (Kindergarten: 19/20; Gr. One: 17/20; Gr. Two: 8/20). After two and a half months in an SLD class where he gets Academy of Reading, and the Merrill program, he tests at the start of Gr. 3. (Test administered by me from Rosner’s book, Helping Children Overcome Learning Difficulties). His overall W-J Reading %ile score in Nov. was 33 (Low Avg./Avg). He showed avg competence to employ phonic and structural analysis skills for phonetically regular nonsense words but struggled to complete the test (false starts, need for extra time). Sight word identification was avg./low avg. Passage comprehension was average but struggle was also evident (as in all areas of the reading testing). The assessor feels his very superior verbal reasoning skills enhanced his overall result in reading. Apart from auditory analysis, other areas of weakness identified are working memory, visual-perceptual organization/analysis; visual processing speed skills and visual memory.He is reading better and more fluently (ex. Pokemon Jr. chpt. books which he could not have read in the fall) since the testing and is starting to apply decoding strategies.Should we ditch LIPS soon or persevere? Thank you for your feedback.
Re: LIPS
: I don’t have my manual in front of me right now but where exactly are
: you…plain old blocks and tiles, simple syllables, complex
: syllables? Have you worked up to multi-syllables yet? LiPS can be
: very redundant and it takes creativity to make it not so
: “boring” What I do after I get the kids fairly stable on
: their phonemic awareness. We do about 5 minutes of blocks/tiles.
: Then I pull out the white board and the fun begins. We do lots of
: real words with chains using LiPS in combination with Seeing
: Stars. I move at a rapid pace, and do a few nonsense words but I
: spend the bulk of my time in real words Visualizing and
: verbalizing as we go. We talk about the words, what they mean, how
: to use them in a sentence. We do lots of laughing etc.. We spend
: the end of the session reading and if we have time we write a few
: sentences about what we read.
: One of my friends who worked at a LMB clinic told me that as soon as
: the kids have decent PA they move right into Seeing Stars and if
: the child needs Visualizing and Verbalizing they move into that
: rapidly as well.: Susan Barton’s system is a good program and it sounds like he is
: making gains so keep up what you are doing and if he is getting it
: move onto something else that is more challenging for him.Thanks for your response. We are now reviewing consonants before moving on to vowels—haven’t started using tiles and breaking words into syllables yet, and we wonder if Barton might be more useful at that stage. I fought hard to get the school board to purchase LIPS, which was recommended in the assessment, not dreaming they actually would do it. (Apparently they once had several copies but “lost” them—could this have something to do with LIPS not being too teacher-friendly, without a workshop to get things rolling? Our board would never dream of actually spending the money to get someone properly trained in a pgm, especially if it involved sending them any distance.) Meanwhile, I located Barton tutors through our local LD Assoc. Eager to expand their repetoire, they purchased the program and I began pulling my son out of school twice weekly for tutoring in our home and doing 2-3 sessions myself. Then I learned the board purchased a new class version for use by my son’s teacher. Ironically, he may be through the program before the board gets its shipment of the program! (They also hired an EA as a result of my agitating). I may ask if they’d consider exchanging the program for “Seeing Stars”, which will soon be of more use. I can tell the classroom teacher was somewhat daunted by the LIPS overview video I loaned her. Is Seeing Stars an easier program to implement? Does the manual for it stand alone, or do you really need the class set? (If they won’t consider an exchange I’m quite sure they won’t be willing to spring for another U.S. kit. (As you can probably tell, I’m from Canada, and our $is the pits against yours!—another likely reason for the reluctance to train teachers in this pgm; the only other place in Canada where its being used as far as I can tell is in Edmonton at a literacy centre.)Meantime the school is using a multisensory program for sight words—I think it’s called Stanwyx or something (I jotted it down and have lost sight of it). Can Seeing Stars be implementd by someone who hasn’t been through LIPS?Thanks for your advice and assistance. LD Online is a great service!
Re: LIPS
PASSWORD>aaI221mi7wL3IDon’t throw the baby out with the bath water. :-) LiPS is a good program and it is the foundation of Seeing Stars. Many teachers don’t understand LiPS because they don’t have speech and language background. I do so it makes sense to me and it is a very valid program. Once the child has good phonemic awareness then we move into Seeing Stars for sightwords and symbol imagery. Seeing Stars can be implemented with the book, you wouldn’t need to training to implement it. It is user friendly. There are lots of lists of words, you can make flash cards and do the program yourself without purchasing the kit. The kit is pricey and it filled with flashcards that are spiral bound. You are just paying for the convenience of not making your own flashcards.If you have any more questions let me know.
PASSWORD>aaI221mi7wL3II don’t have my manual in front of me right now but where exactly are you…plain old blocks and tiles, simple syllables, complex syllables? Have you worked up to multi-syllables yet? LiPS can be very redundant and it takes creativity to make it not so “boring” What I do after I get the kids fairly stable on their phonemic awareness. We do about 5 minutes of blocks/tiles. Then I pull out the white board and the fun begins. We do lots of real words with chains using LiPS in combination with Seeing Stars. I move at a rapid pace, and do a few nonsense words but I spend the bulk of my time in real words Visualizing and verbalizing as we go. We talk about the words, what they mean, how to use them in a sentence. We do lots of laughing etc.. We spend the end of the session reading and if we have time we write a few sentences about what we read.One of my friends who worked at a LMB clinic told me that as soon as the kids have decent PA they move right into Seeing Stars and if the child needs Visualizing and Verbalizing they move into that rapidly as well.Susan Barton’s system is a good program and it sounds like he is making gains so keep up what you are doing and if he is getting it move onto something else that is more challenging for him.