Lips and Seeing Stars

If you haven’t taken a look at Phono-Graphix, you might want to consider that instead. There is quite a demand for certified PG tutors, the training is not demanding, and the children tend to remediate quickly. There are a number of teachers and reading tutors who post on the ReadNOW list at http://www.groups.yahoo.com. You might want to ask if someone there has experience with both reading approaches and could compare them for you.

Website for PG is http://www.readamerica.net

The authors’ book, “Reading Reflex”, is $16 at most bookstores and would give you a good overview of the philosophy and methodology, although RR is written for parents.

Mary

I recieved training in both programs as well as Visualizing and Verbalizing one year ago. Further my daughter has had extensive remediation in an LB clinic using all three programs. I cannot recomment them highly enough. But I would also recommend PhonoGraphics if you are tutoring a broad range of students as different learners need different remediation programs. For some learners PG is what they need while others requir more extensive remediation that I believe may be suited to LB.

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Would it be necessary to have the Seeing Stars training to implement? Hope to hear from all that could give any feedback. thanks, barb in little rock

I work as a private tutor currently…>>

You really do need the training for the LiPS program, but you can probably do just as well reading the manual for Seeing Stars and purchasing the kit. I did take the training, but as you say the training is very expensive, and I didn’t buy the kit until over a year later (had to save up!). By that time the benefits of training were a bit lost on me. However, the manual is written very well. I love the program, though. I’ve used it constantly since December. Even if you receive training in a program, you’re going to learn better by doing. The word attack score on the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests really increased for those who really applied themselves. Unfortunately, it didn’t really carry over the the Word Identification test at this point.

One thing I did notice is that the program really did give them strategies they need to sound out new words.

Marilyn

Hi Barb,

I was trained in LiPS about five years ago, and have been using it successfully ever since, both in tutoring and in my resource room. I do think you’ll need the training in order to do that successfully, in fact many people need a “refresher” course before diving into the multi-syllable level, I know I did. Seeing Stars is a little easier to implement, especially once you have had the LiPS training, I took a two day course in it recently, and found it valuable, but I had already been using a lot of what I had picked up from the book. So if you wanted to conserve money, you might want to just concentrate on the LiPS training, and just buy the book and/or kit for Seeing Stars.

Incidentally, I don’t really agree with the instructor I had in Seeing Stars, who said that she switches her students over to SS as soon as possible. My reading of the research seems to indicate that the auditory perceptual weakness is still the key component in most reading disabilities, therefore it makes sense to me to strengthen that area as much as possible, before going on to work on the visual area, and this seems to work best for me. I do think they need SS at some point, especially as they begin to learn more of the “variable” aspects of English spelling, and this is the point where I usually begin to integrate the SS strategies.

Feel free to email if you have more specific suggestion, or just let me know how it goes!

I am a little behind on this topic because I just saw this today, but will put in my two cents worth anyhow.

I bought the Seeing Stars manual and had a hard time understanding the process, so I took the training also. Others have found the manual easy to understand, so maybe you could buy the manual first and then decide if you need the training.

Seeing Stars has been great! I have used it with students who are poor spellers and have seen lots of improvement, especially at the multisyllabic level. The technique of visualizing and manipulating the words has worked so well with these kids. Also, they love it! It has also helped their reading.

I’ve also done Visualizing and Verbalizing for kids who had comprehension difficulties. The manual alone was sufficient, and the kids love this program, too.

Thanks for all the input!! Just wanted to let you know that I had to make a quick decision and did take the LiPs and SI training last week. Thought it was very good but am feeling a bit overwhelmed with it all. I plan to “practice” now with my own son who lags slightly in word attack skills. Then I will try to begin implementing it with others.

I am sure I will have many questions later. Will be writing soon. barb in little rock

PG has full time people who post on these boards to drum up business.
I purchased the book. It is ok, but not what they profess it to be.

STOP This may be an advertisement. Therefore, it is not objective!

I plan to be trained in visualizing and verbalizing and LiPS later this summer. You said you just completed the program and feel overwhelmed. Why is that (components, unclear instructions,..)? I ask because I am not familiar with these methods.
I plan to go to the lindamoodbell.com site and get all the information I can. Please post a note to say how your son does when you work with him. Thanks for sharing.

I am currently working with my son to “practice” the LiPs and I also feel that he needs this. It is going very well. He had been very patient with me and likes the program.

I did feel overwhelmed initially because of the large amount of information I received at the training. This is different than anything I taught before and I have no real experience with speech therapy. The approach of feeling the movement with your mouth is something I am learning while teaching it.

I am very excited to see if this will help my eight year old next year in both word attack skills and spelling. barb in little rock