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

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.