Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Lindamood Bell - Seeing Stars

Anyone familiar with this program?

DS6 starts his second week tomorrow. I am impressed so far. I think for him his biggest gains will be in spelling. His decoding has come a long way already but his spelling is completely phonetic. On the fly he was able to correctly spell "spoil" and "bleach". Then they'll ask him to take a look at his mental picture and read the word if he removes the "p" in spoil or the "l" in bleach.

It is definitely stretching his weak working memory but considering he started last week with little chucks (change the "i" in "is" to an "a") and ended with longer words, it seems to be progressing.

This brings up another topic but I am going to start a new thread for that.

Our dyslexic dd's tutoring service uses it - I think it's the program that dd used when she was starting out with remediation, I know for sure that it was what was recommended at her initial eval but to be honest, once she started her tutoring, I paid much more attention to what specific skills she was working on each time and can't remember whether or not any of it was part of Seeing Stars.

FWIW, remediation has helped dd quite a bit - although she's also been through tutors, and the background/depth of experience/personality of the tutor all made a *huge* difference in terms of how quickly she made progress.

polarbear

I looked into it for my DD back when she was in elementary. It wasn't what my needed for support but I've heard good things about it. When my DD was in elementary my school district had a dedicated special ed Lindamood Bell class for kids in younger elementary.

Update -

Well, he has finished his second week and it is still going well. At the end of K his teacher said his reading level was beginning second grade.

This week at Lindamood Bell, he was done with second and heading through third.

I am not sure I put a lot of stock in reading levels. It seems like one person's second grade could be another person's third. They all look about the same to me. Perhaps they are more standardized than I realize. Nonetheless, grade levels aside, I can see a lot of improvement.

Another interesting development is that his school teachers are going to visit the center and meet with his tutors to discuss his progress. Additionally, his tutors are going to visit his school in the fall for a follow-up. It is a nice step to get everyone on the same page.

DD11 has been seeing a private tutor for the past four months. She uses Lindamood Bell and Orton-Gillingham. We are seeing fantastic results already!!

Question I am afraid to ask...

How much does the Lindamood-Bell tutoring cost? What is the investment for, say, one year tutoring twice a week?

DD7 is being worked up for a reading disability. She is reading at grade level which is torturously awkward for her. The school district has been dragging their feet for a full year and we are only now on the list for testing and possible services in September.

We are hopeful the district will foot the bill, but... we are willing to invest if necessary.

I see they have a summer special for $295 for testing...

I used to work for them at one of their clinics, and then later at a special clinic set up within a school district where I was employed by that district rather than by Lindamood-Bell.

If you're enrolled at one of their clinics, they generally have a minimum of 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 4 weeks. Depending on the location, it's about $80 an hour. So you're looking at $6400 for 80 hours over 4 weeks, not including testing fees.

I didn't know of any students who went for only an hour or two a week, but you can always ask at your local clinic. The only student I heard of who was enrolled less than that amount was a 4-year-old with no apparent learning difficulties who did 2 hours a day for a total of 10 a week. She didn't need it but her mom wanted to pay so....

Thanks, W'sMama, I called and they cost $112/hour. They usually suggest 4 hours/day for 4 weeks for just under $9000 for a month of intensive tutoring.

Funny, if you suggest $9000 for a year of tutoring once or twice a week with the same result offered - rapid progression - it sounds more palatable.

I am going to get her evaluated for $295 and make a decision from there. We have checked into other avenues privately and through the school, so here we are at Lindamood-Bell. Seems many parents here with ADHD-dyslexia-challenged learners are realizing some reading success with their methods. I'm looking forward to hearing what they have to offer.

Holy wow! That's nuts. I'd gladly tutor your kid for $112 an hour for just a couple hours a week! Note that they're paying the actual tutors (clinicians) a tiny fraction of that amount. You might want to try putting out an ad for a tutor who's been trained in L-B, and offer $30 an hour or something. Most of the people who work there are just college kids who've had a 2-week training session.

Seablue, our dd's tutor (using Seeing Stars) costs $100/hour, but dd only sees her once per week. When she started it was recommended that she see the tutor twice per week, but we had to opt for only once per week due to dd's schedule (and the tutor's already packed client schedule :)). As I mentioned previously, dd made very little progress with her first tutor, and rapid-fire progress with her latest tutor (both through the same office). Each child's needs are going to be individual, but for a HG/+ child, depending on where he/she is at now, I suspect there might be a trade-off somewhere in the amount of bang-for-your-buck you get with 4 sessions per week vs perhaps 2. Does that make sense? I think if we'd sent dd in for 4 sessions per week she would have burned out on it to a certain extent. Instead she had time during the week for the new concepts/words/etc to sink in before the next session. Plus reading was not fun for her *at all* - this was total work and total drudge up until a certain point when things became much easier (and when she had her new tutor :)).

polarbear

Yes, we are hotly debating the sweet spot for tutoring. FWIW, DD7 popped out of the 4 hour assessment today glowing, declaring her love for the time spent. When we said we'd be pulling her out of summer camp and putting her in (cringe) reading 4 hours a day 5 days a week she said... GREAT! So she definitely enjoyed the one-on-one tutoring attention.

She's only reading at a 1st grade level, but we see a potential leap to 3rd grade right away, with intensive tutoring. She seems poised for a burst ahead. This is her M.O. We'll know more on Monday (we hope) when Lindamood-Bell gives us their recommendations. We anticipate a 3-4 week intensive, then once or twice a week after that.

We've started feeling like we've got Helen Keller on our hands, given DD's limitations with reading and writing. Can't wait to get her keyboarding, too!

DS finished the recommended intense four week session. It was expensive (around $8,000) for the 80 hours of instruction. However, there are other benefits to their program. First, they invited his teachers (5 in all) to the center to show his progress and learn about how they work with him. They are also coming to his school (over an hour away) in the fall to see how he is doing and to work with his teachers. He gets follow up testing this year and every year from now on. All of this extra stuff is covered by the $8,000.

I have not received the post instruction test results but during the last week of instruction my dyslexic entering first grader who was struggling with BOB books ths time last year, was reading at the fifth/sixth grade level.

Lindamood Bell does not get the credit for all that progress. He goes to a good school, we've been doing Toe by Toe at home and he had just matured a bit.

I do think Seeing Stars was a worthwhile investment of our money and his time. He has a new skill for visualizing words.

He really loves reading now and working on it and experiencing improvement with effort has greatly improved his attitude towards tasks that are not immediately easy. We've seen this in bike riding, frustrating video games, and chores.

He also really likes being ahead and it is causing him to push himself in other areas like math. I wouldn't consider him a gifted math kid. He has never been very interested in numbers but did have a respectable 98th percentile math reasoning score on the WIAT last year. His math at school is self paced. This week he came home saying he "busted" through all the math to get to multiplication. He has never really pushed himself to get to higher level stuff before.

So overall, good stuff is happening with DS6.

"I have not received the post instruction test results but during the last week of instruction my dyslexic entering first grader who was struggling with BOB books ths time last year, was reading at the fifth/sixth grade level."

That is encouraging! We have the Toe-by-Toe book but haven't started it. We've had two days of Seeing Stars. We are also doing the intense 4 week instruction. I can't imagine this will work, but I've seen it with other things with our kids learning things rapidly, like flipping a light switch. You give me hope :-)

I get the results on Thursday. I will let you know. They said early on the tested result is usually a grade or two lower than the "working" level but we'll see.

He has read several short chapter books this week. I looked up the levels and they are all in the fourth, fifth or sixth grade level. I think his comprehension is pretty good. He read Fantastic Mr. Fox and was able to talk about all the differences from the movie.

Good luck with the next four weeks. It is intense!

Yow. I do not know one single person who could pay $8000 for 2 weeks of tutoring. Mind you wages are a bit different here. Unless they are paying the tutors $80 an hour I think they are taking advantage a bit.

Eta. I don't know anyone who could afford that spread over a year either.

Eta2. It does sound like an effective programme though.

Just a "do the results last over time?" update -

Yes, they do. I'd say he is a literate person now. He read a few stories in the newspaper that caught his eye this week. He reads mostly non-fiction but will occasionally read fiction.

He had some follow up testing with the Eides about a month after he finished Seeing Stars and had gone from the bottom of some measures to the top since last year.

He is going back to Lindamood Bell this month for five hours of tutoring. It was included in the original fee so I figured we should use every bit.

I still think it was a good choice. Last year he had to do numerous retakes of his spelling tests. The kids are all on different list that get bigger and more difficult as they progress. If they don't get 90% or more correct, they have to repeat that list the next week. His list size has doubled since school started a few weeks ago and he has progressed every week. I don't think the improvement would have happened without Lindamood Bell.