All posts by Amy Kessler

Tips for Parents | How to Spot Comprehension Weakness

Australia, Comprehension, Helpful Tips,

Students with decoding issues, including dyslexia, can be easy to spot. They often miscall words (e.g., breakfast as “basket”); their oral reading is slow and “choppy;” and, spelling is tough to master. It is important to identify these students who struggle, so they can get the help they need.

 

Unfortunately, there are many students who have a different, separate, learning issue that is rarely identified and, therefore, never addressed. Hidden in plain sight, many students have a learning weakness that prevents them from fully understanding the language they read and hear. For example, a student who doesn’t turn in homework assignments may be perceived as “unmotivated” or “lazy.” But it may just be that he has trouble understanding instructions in class.

 

A primary cause of language comprehension problems is difficulty creating mental images for language. This weakness causes individuals to get only “parts” of information that they read or hear, but not the whole. This weakness often undermines the reading and thinking process. Students with weak language comprehension are commonly saddled with the misconceptions that they are just not trying, or that they are distractible. In fact, they may be trying very hard to memorize everything they have heard or read. And they need help.

 

 

Signs of comprehension weakness include:

 

1. Trouble understanding what they read

Students with weak comprehension have difficulty recalling what they’ve read. They might get parts, or some details, but may have difficulty remembering a book or story as a whole. Homework and schoolwork relying on their understanding of the text will be difficult.  These students may not enjoy reading for pleasure. 

 

2. Weak problem solving skills

Students with weak comprehension can be prone to poor decision making. Thinking through the implications and consequences of their actions may be challenging. Because they are only processing parts, they may not “see” the big picture.

 

They also may have difficulty with problem solving methods required in math and science.

 

3. Writing assignments are “painful” and poorly done

Many students with language comprehension weakness may also have poor writing skills because they lack the imagery for the gestalt (whole). Without the “big picture” idea for a topic, a student will have a hard time constructing a strong paragraph. The ability to generate the main idea, offer supporting details, make inferences, and wrap up with a conclusion that is cohesive and well organized is challenging for this student.

 

4. Verbal expression is affected

This student may be prone to including irrelevant details or issues when speaking; he or she also may re-tell stories out of sequence. On the other hand, this student may be very quiet and shy. Whether this student talks very little or a lot, the language seems disconnected from the listener.

 

5. Difficulty following directions

Students with a comprehension issue can become overwhelmed after more than one or two directions (“I’ll meet you at the car. Bring your tennis shoes. . .”). Directions from teachers and parents may appear to go in one ear and out the other, without a connection, and students seem unable to focus on what they are told.

 

Solutions at Lindamood-Bell

The imagery-language foundation can be developed as a foundation for comprehension and thinking. Students can make years of academic growth in just a few weeks and go back to school ready to learn.

 

Get started by contacting your local learning center to discuss how we can help make this coming school year easier! 

Why Daily Intensive Instruction?

Australia, Instruction, Learning Centers, , ,

Those who are new to Lindamood-Bell may be more familiar with traditional tutoring conducted over the course of semesters or years. Therefore, our daily instruction, that changes reading or comprehension in a short period of time, may be unfamiliar. An “intensive care” learning environment can be ideal for students who are not performing to their potential. Lindamood-Bell pioneered the concept of intensive instruction—four hours a day, five days a week with our research-validated instruction.

 

Why is daily beneficial?

Nanci Bell, co-founder, explains daily intensive instruction in the following excerpt from Visualizing and Verbalizing for Language Comprehension and Thinking:

 

“The rate of learning gain can be improved with intensive intervention. Students with severe weakness in concept imagery may be years behind in language comprehension. For example, Johnny, a student in the fifth grade with reading comprehension at the second-grade level, has a three-year gap between his grade level and his reading comprehension. Even with adequate oral vocabulary and decoding skills, Johnny didn’t gain a year in reading comprehension for each year in school…intervention has to decrease the learning gap by increasing the rate of learning. To increase the rate of learning, you need to provide the right diagnosis and the right instruction, in the right environment. The last is often intensive intervention, four hours a day, five days a week, which results in years of gain in weeks of instruction.”

 

Why do some students struggle?

Reading is an integration of processing skills: word attack, sight word recognition, contextual fluency, oral vocabulary, and comprehension. Students with poor comprehension, critical thinking, writing and memory may have weak concept imagery—the ability to create an imagined gestalt (whole) from language. Students who are poor decoders and spellers, or slow readers, may have weak symbol imagery—the ability to visualize letters in words. These difficulties are not only frustrating for a student, but prevent them from accessing school curriculum.

 

School at any grade can include the kind of good challenges that foster learning: discovering a solution in science lab, writing a poem, or even studying for a big test, can all be positive learning experiences. However, if a student has a weakness that affects learning to begin with, they may not be getting everything they should from school. Their challenges with reading or comprehension may be hindering their ability to fully participate in schoolwork. And, rather than catch up eventually, a struggling student will typically fall farther and farther behind as the year goes on.

 

Will intensive instruction be “too much” for my child?

Parents may worry that their child will not be able to maintain focus for so many hours. We get it! Even the most disciplined student would have difficulty attending to a teacher for twenty hours per week of typical reading help.

 

Our continued success with students, including those with a previous diagnosis of a learning difficulty and/or attention issue, is due to our unique approach. We accurately assess individual needs and provide research-validated instruction in a safe, positive, focused environment.  Lindamood-Bell sessions feature a high level of interaction, movement, games, and motivational rewards. Students work with a different instructor every hour to keep attention rate and intensity high and the sessions interesting. Our instructors are energetic and passionate about maximizing learning throughout every session. As a result, our students see success quickly and realize they can learn given the right tools!

 

An alumni family describes Intensive Instruction:

 

Imagine Your Child’s Learning Potential

If school is hard for your child, you need to know why and that there is help. Identifying strengths and weaknesses is the first step toward helping your child learn to their potential. A learning evaluation will uncover the strengths and weaknesses that are affecting school. In a thorough results consultation, we will discuss an individualized learning plan to make school easier.

 

Some students come to us with a previous diagnosis such as dyslexia, autism spectrum disorder, or a general learning challenge—and we make a difference for each of them.

 

Some students seek our help to enhance their skills or to just make learning easier—and we do.

 

Learning at Lindamood-Bell

Lindamood-Bell instruction is based on the learning needs of each student. We can make a difference for students of all ages and abilities.

 

Our individualized Summer Programs result in extraordinary academic gain in just a few weeks. We teach reading, comprehension, and math at our learning centers.

 

Summer is a great time to schedule intensive instruction, and get ahead for the next school year. Get started today by contacting our learning center to discuss your child’s needs.

School Partnerships | Spotlight on Kentwood Public Schools

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The research-validated programs authored by Lindamood-Bell’s founders address the imagery-language connection that is a silent partner to cognition and literacy, and is often the missing piece in helping students close the achievement gap.

 

Our unique programs can help diverse groups of students learn to read, comprehend, and compute to their potential, including students with minor to severe learning challenges and English Language Learners. Our instruction can be effectively implemented within a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework and is aligned with state and Common Core Standards.

 

We partnered with Kentwood Public Schools for the 2018-19 school year, during which time students achieved significant gains in reading through Lindamood-Bell instruction.

 

Superintendent Michael Zoerhoff provides an introduction to their diverse school district, which serves students from more than 60 countries who speak more than 70- languages:

 

 

Background

Kentwood Public Schools in Kentwood, MI, serves a large percentage of students who are at-risk of reading failure. During the 2018-19 school year, Kentwood Public Schools implemented Lindamood-Bell® instruction to address the specific needs of this student population. 223 students received an average of 83.8 hours of primarily Seeing Stars instruction to develop symbol imagery for reading. Instruction was delivered by Kentwood Public Schools’ teachers who received professional development in the programs created by Lindamood-Bell’s founders. Student gains were measured with a battery of reading assessments.

 

 

Results

On average, Seeing Stars students achieved significant improvements in reading. They made large standard score changes on several measures, including a 5.0-point change in Accuracy and a 3.9-point change in Fluency. Additionally, the 11-point percentile increase in Symbol Imagery placed these students within the normal range (25th-75th percentile). Their pre- to posttest results were statistically significant on nearly all measures. The results of this study illustrate that Lindamood-Bell instruction in the Seeing Stars program leads to improved reading, which is essential to achieving success with school curricula.

 

Additional Resources

Hear from Superintendent Michael Zoerhoff as he describes how the Kentwood learning community strives for excellence and equity, while celebrating its great diversity, in this podcast episode.

 

Kentwood Public Schools was also featured in one of our Leaders in Literacy webinars, Real-Life RtI. Learn more about how they successfully implemented an RtI framework and their focus on professional development by watching the webinar.

 

Explore more of Kentwood Public Schools’ results here.

 

Learn More

Schools partner with Lindamood-Bell for our expertise in research-validated programs that work within a Response to Intervention (RtI) framework and are aligned with state standards, including Common Core. 

 

Explore our professional development workshops and contact us with questions or to discuss how your school can get started: 800-233-1819.

Tips for Preventing the Summer Slide

Australia, Helpful Tips, Learning Centers

 

Time away from school can lead to measurable learning loss in skills like reading. Teachers know all about “the summer slide”— students come back to school out of practice, maybe forgetting some of what they learned. For this reason, your child’s teacher may have encouraged families to make reading a summer priority.  We’ve gathered a few ideas to help get you started.

 

Keep up the momentum

Keep reading skills fresh by scheduling dedicated reading time every day. Putting library visits and/or trips to the bookstore on your family’s summer calendar can help. At home, it may be helpful to create some cozy spaces that are conducive to reading. If your family has hit the road for a summer trip, scheduled reading time in the evening can be a great wind-down activity for everyone.

 

Check in about the books they’re reading to monitor for understanding. Ask, “What did you picture for what happened in that story?”, “What do you think might happen next?”, or “How would you change the ending of the story?”

 

Explore interests

Summer is a great time for children and teens to explore their personal interests. For example, an animal enthusiast can visit the zoo or volunteer at the local animal shelter. Use their special interest to choose summer reading titles.

 

Maintain limits

Screen time, including TV, can prevent kids from being mentally and physically active.  For this reason, it’s a good idea to set time limits on screen time just as you would during the school year, allowing for ample time outside, interacting face-to-face, with family and friends. While TV and gaming can have some value, these activities offer little opportunity for students to visualize language—a key component for comprehension. Reading books, and listening to audiobooks can keep your child’s mind active.

 

Reluctant reader?

If reading is not fun for your child, implementing a summer reading plan may be especially challenging.  A learning ability evaluation can uncover the strengths and weaknesses that affect reading and comprehension. The right learning plan can turn weaknesses into strengths and make school easier. Check out this infographic about the causes of some reading difficulties: [INFOGRAPHIC] Why is my child struggling in school?

 

Turn Summer Learning Loss into Learning Gain!

Imagine your child returning to school in the fall with better skills, ready to tackle the new year. Students can spend part of their summer at one of our learning centers to turn what could have been a learning loss, into a learning gain.

 

Summer learning at Lindamood-Bell is individualized to meet the learning needs of each student in a short amount of time. Because it’s one-to-one, we’ll only spend time on what your child needs. Learn about our summer programs here.

 

Some students come to us with a previous diagnosis of a learning challenge. Some need learning to be easier, while some use summer learning to get ahead for next year. We start by identifying strengths and weaknesses that may be affecting performance in reading, comprehension, and math. And, we make recommendations for individualized instruction plans that create learning gains. Students go back to school with more confidence.

 

 

Make an impact this summer!  It’s a great time to get ahead for next school year. Get started today by contacting us to discuss how we can help make this summer everything your family has been waiting for! 

 

Learning at Lindamood-Bell

Lindamood-Bell instruction is based on the learning needs of each student. We can make a difference for students of all ages and abilities.

 

Our individualized Summer Programs result in extraordinary academic gain in just a few weeks. We teach reading, comprehension, and math at our learning centers.

A High School Student Finds His Spark at Lindamood-Bell Academy

Academy

Ian, a college-bound student describes his own learning journey. He talks about how he overcame struggles with learning and motivation and what it’s like to go to high school and prepare for college at Lindamood-Bell Academy.

 

 

Hear more of Ian’s story in our most recent episode of the Lindamood-Bell Radio Podcast. 

 

Lindamood-Bell Academy is a private K-12 school that combines research-validated instruction with a fully individualized curriculum to help close the gap between potential and performance. 

 

Students attend online, in-person or a combination of both. The learning needs of each student are addressed so they are ready to succeed. 

 

Enroll now. Get in touch or call 800-300-1818.

Tips for Parents | Navigating Progress Reports

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“It was fine.”

 

“We didn’t really do anything.”

 

“It was okay, I guess.”

 

Students can be notoriously tight-lipped when it comes to sharing details of the school day. It can be hard for parents to glean how things are really going: did your second grader eat his or her entire lunch? Is your middle schooler making new friends in a bigger, more intimidating school? Was signing up for two AP classes this year a mistake for your varsity soccer player? If your child is also hesitant to show homework or ask for help with assignments, mid-marking period progress reports can be jarring if he or she isn’t performing as well as you’d hoped or expected.

 

Interpreting the Progress Report

Before you can come up with a solution, you’ll need to figure out what the problem is. Read through the progress report and look for keywords and phrases such as “difficulty with” or “inadequate progress.” Note what subjects seem to be the hardest for your child and consider what factors may be at play. Is he struggling in all subjects due to trouble adjusting to a new school routine? Is her math grade outstanding while she received unsatisfactory marks in Social Studies? Are any comments or grades particularly surprising (i.e., your third grader is struggling to keep up in Language Arts when he or she was previously reading at or above grade level)?

 

Meet With Your Child’s Teacher

Make note of any questions or concerns you have, and request a meeting with your child’s teacher. She will be able to answer your questions and offer feedback on what’s happening in the classroom — and the best ways to help your child be successful. Ask if there’s anything you can be doing at home, or if there are any resources available to you. It can also be helpful to let your child know you’ll be talking to the teacher, acknowledge any successes so far this year, and emphasize that you want to help make things easier.

“Mrs. Jones mentioned how respectful you are to your classmates, and I’m so proud of you for that! She also shared that you’re having trouble completing your science lab reports. I’m going to meet with her to see if there’s anything we can do together to make those easier. Do you have any ideas?” Involving your child and asking her for ideas may make it easier for her to be more candid about how school is going or to tell you if there’s something she’s specifically struggling with. This may also help to lessen any anxiety or stress she’s feeling about her school performance or struggles.

 

Red Flags to Watch For

There are sometimes circumstantial events that can make the first marking period difficult for a student. Has he transitioned from elementary school to middle school? Are there major familial changes (i.e., divorce, death in the family, moving to a new home)? Is she having trouble maintaining friendships? While those things can be contributing factors to poor grades, it’s also important to determine if there’s an underlying weakness that’s keeping your child from reaching his or her potential.

 

If a progress report shows poor performance in the areas of language arts and spelling, your child may be suffering from an underlying weakness in language processing skills. A cause of difficulty in establishing sight words and contextual fluency is difficulty in visualizing letters in words. This is called weak symbol imagery—the ability to create mental imagery for sounds and letters within words. A significant number of students have difficulty with rapidly perceiving sounds in words and are slow to self-correct their reading errors. This causes weakness in:

 

  • Memorizing sight words
  • Sounding out words
  • Orthographic awareness
  • Phonemic awareness
  • Contextual reading fluency
  • Orthographic spelling

If your student is having difficulty with science, history/social studies, math, writing, and homework, he or she may have weak concept imagery—the ability to create an imagined or imaged gestalt (whole) from language. This weakness causes individuals to get only “parts” of information they read or hear, but not the whole. It’s important to note that weak decoding skills can also affect grades in subjects that require a lot of reading. Weak concept imagery causes weakness in:

 

  • Reading comprehension
  • Listening comprehension
  • Critical thinking and problem solving
  • Following directions
  • Memory
  • Oral language expression
  • Written language expression

These underlying sensory-cognitive functions must be intact in order for your child to achieve academic success. If not, there will be a breakdown in reading and language comprehension skills, resulting in frustration, stress, and poor grades on progress reports.

 

This family’s experience sheds light on some of the common myths about learning how to read:

 

Don’t Wait to Get Help

It can be tempting to hope that reading or comprehension issues will work themselves out, but for students with a weakness in symbol or concept imagery, waiting often means more time for them to struggle and fall further behind. 

 

Our learning ability evaluation can determine the specific areas of strength and weakness for your child. From there, we offer an individualized plan, based on our research-validated instruction, that’s best suited to your child for closing the gap or just making learning easier. 

 

Contact your local Learning Center for more information about what might be causing poor grades on your child’s progress report and how we can help.

Tips for Parents | Help Make Summer Reading Fun

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During the school year, reading is built into a child’s day. Students are reading from the board, assignment sheets, and books at school, and during homework time. Parents may feel challenged when trying to squeeze reading into the summer schedule. No matter where your summer adventures take your family, it’s important to include regular reading along the way. We’ve rounded up some tips to get you started.

 

Find New Opportunities

For many families, summertime is an opportunity to spend more time together. Weaving in reading can be simple to do. Instead of evenings slugging through homework, you may be cooking together or playing games. Have your child be the one to find and read recipes. Your child may be ready to read the game instructions to the family. While on vacation, take turns reading about the next stop on your adventure.

 

Explore Their Interests —  via Books!

Thanks to your local library and websites like Amazon and Scholastic, there are more books  available than ever. Tap into your son or daughter’s interests when searching for new options. Animals, baseball, Star Wars, My Little Pony – make reading more fun by providing your child with a high-interest topic. Connect a field trip to the aquarium with a book about sharks, or find a book about the Gold Coast before heading to Dreamworld.

 

Go Beyond the Book

With time on your side, you have the freedom to help your child explore new media sources. Magazines are an excellent source of special-interest material. Many local libraries have vast selections of graphic novels for children and teens. Check out the local comic bookstore for titles that may get young readers hooked on reading for years to come.

 

Create a Positive Environment

Establish a time for quiet reading in your household as something to look forward to and enjoy! If your summer reader observes you reading, he or she is less likely to see reading as a chore or something negative. Stepping away from TV time or iPad games as a family eliminates distractions and can allow your child to view reading as something enjoyable.

 

At home, it may be helpful to create some cozy spaces that are conducive to reading. If your family has hit the road for a summer trip, scheduled reading time in the evening can be a great wind-down activity for everyone.

 

Check in with your children about the books they’re reading to monitor for understanding. Ask, “What did you picture for what happened in that story?”, “What do you think might happen next?”, or “How would you change the ending of the story?”

 

Special Tips for Young Readers

Start by reading aloud while guiding your child to follow along with a finger. Have your child start to sound out some of the words. Increase the child’s share of the reading as skills grow. Choose a few common words from the reading to put on 3 x 5 cards for practice. It is important for a new reader to start to recognize sight words like “the” and “ball” rather than trying to sound them out every time.

 

Spend reading time focusing on comprehension, too. Try reading a page without showing your child the pictures. Ask your child what they are imagining for a character or action.

 

Try Audiobooks and Read Alouds

Allow your child to be exposed to text in different ways: have a read aloud or listen to an audiobook. Hearing a fun, exciting story may motivate your child to seek out a book on his or her own. After you read or listen to a story, you can gauge your student’s comprehension by asking some imagery questions. Things like, “How did you see that happening?” or “What do you picture happening next?” can begin a fun discussion of the story and allow you to see what your child is getting out of it.

 

Help for Reluctant Readers

No matter how many fun books your child is exposed to, reading may continue to be a source of tension if your child has a weakness that affects the ability to read. Having to sound out the same word every time it appears, slow reading, and difficulty differentiating the letters and sounds within words are all signs of a reading weakness. These challenges may be tied to your child’s symbol imagery, which is the ability to create mental imagery for sounds and letters. Having symbol imagery that’s intact is essential for being able to decode new words, maintain sight words, and become an independent, fluent reader. Learn more about reading difficulty and solutions here.

 

What’s more, being a fluent reader doesn’t guarantee strong reading comprehension. Your child has to “see movies” while reading, to allow comprehension to happen. Concept imagery is the ability to create an imagined gestalt — or whole — from language. Learn about the imagery-language connection for reading comprehension here.

 

Dedicate Time to Improving Reading

We hope you are ready to include reading in your summer plans! For many students, two months away from academics can lead to measurable learning loss in skills like reading and math—which, of course, is not what any family wants to be faced with at the start of the upcoming school year.

 

Need more help? Your child can spend part of the summer at one of our learning centers, to turn what could have been a learning loss into a learning gain. Some students come to us with a previous diagnosis or a learning challenge. Some need for learning to be easier, while some use summertime learning to get ahead for the next year. We start by identifying strengths and weaknesses that may be affecting performance in reading, comprehension, and math.  And, we make recommendations for individualized instruction plans that create learning gains. Students go back to school with more confidence.

 

 

Contact us to learn more and get started at a learning center near you.

Tips for Parents: When the Teacher Recommends Reading Help

Australia, Helpful Tips, Reading, , ,

Research shows that students who read over summer break end up boosting their reading skills, while those who do not, often slide backward, losing up to two months of what they learned during the school year.  This is why teachers always encourage students to read as much as possible over summer break. But if your last parent-teacher conference came with a specific suggestion—to get reading support during the summer months—you are likely considering one of the following:

 

1. Reading more with your child, taking on the role of “teacher” yourself

2. Hiring a “reading specialist” to tutor your child 1 or 2 times per week

3. Joining a library reading challenge for extra practice

4. Enrolling your child in a reading camp

5. Doing nothing—because perhaps reading has not yet “clicked” for your child

 

Any of these options can seem like a good idea, so it can be hard to determine the right solution for improving your child’s reading. Rest assured that many parents of primary grade students share this dilemma. With the precious summer months and hopes for a better school year at stake, it’s important to make the right plan for summer learning.

 

What your child needs for success

Reading is an integration of processing skills: word attack, sight word recognition, contextual fluency, oral vocabulary, and comprehension. For many students, a cause of reading difficulties is weak symbol imagery—the ability to visualize letters in the mind’s eye. The connection of imagery and language is necessary for sounding out new words, as well as for recognizing letters and common words. This difficulty can prevent students from accessing school curriculum as quickly and accurately as their peers do. Students who read fluently, and are able to self-correct their errors, are exhibiting strong symbol imagery. Learn more about symbol imagery and solutions for reading difficulties here.

 

Traditional reading camps and tutoring programs focus on content-area instruction, spelling, and reading rules. They may also touch on a variety of reading strategies. While these activities have value, they will not address and improve the underlying cause of a reading difficulty—thereby stretching the issue into the next school year.

 

And, unfortunately, practice does not “make perfect” for students who struggle with reading. While reading with your child and frequenting the library are excellent activities for all families, neither activity will improve reading if there is an unaddressed weakness.

 

Enough help to make a difference

Even great learning programs can be ineffective if they are not conducted with enough intensity to actually change learning. If a child falls behind peers in reading skills, intervention has to decrease the learning gap by increasing the rate of learning. To increase the rate of learning, students need the right diagnosis and the right instruction, in the right environment. At Lindamood-Bell’s learning centers, our daily, intensive intervention commonly results in years of gain in just a matter of weeks of instruction.

 

Learn more about intensive instruction, including a video featuring a parent’s perspective, here.

 

Beware of the “summer slide”

Questioning the teacher’s advice about summer help altogether? You’re not alone. Parents may wonder if a child’s reading is truly unsatisfactory as compared to his or her classroom peers. Or, they may wonder if it would be better to take a total break from schoolwork.  

 

When a teacher has indicated that a child could benefit from reading help, she has likely considered these factors, and more. For many students, two months away from academics can lead to measurable learning losses in skills—which, of course, is not what any family wants to be faced with at the start of the upcoming school year. The summer slide effect hits struggling readers harder than their peers; so, if your teacher has identified an issue, your child may be at risk of starting school even further behind.

 

The first step of a great plan

If you or your child’s teacher are seeing signs of a possible reading difficulty, or you are concerned that reading hasn’t yet “kicked in,” you need to find out why and discover that there is help. A learning ability evaluation uncovers the strengths and weaknesses that impact  learning. At our learning centers, we can identify the strengths and weaknesses that may be affecting school, and we can make recommendations for an individualized instruction plan.

 

A few weeks at one of our learning centers can make reading a strength before the next academic year. Your child can become a better reader in time for school and have plenty of time for a great summer break.

 

In this video, a father shares his daughter’s struggle with learning to read and the success she found when they came to Lindamood-Bell:

 

 

Go here for a list of our locations, including our seasonal, summer-time learning camps. We look forward to helping you plan for summer learning that will make a difference for your child. 

 

Double Bay: (02) 9328 7119 | Chatswood: (02) 9410 1006

The Best Time to Help Your Child Succeed in School

Instruction, Learning Centers, , , , ,

School’s in session and it’s a great time to get started at Lindamood-Bell! In a matter of weeks, our research-validated instruction can result in extraordinary gains in reading, comprehension, and math. These increased skills can help make a huge difference this school year!  

 

Learn More

Find out how we help students succeed! Check out School Year Support: Help for Your Struggling Student.

 

Hear from a parent of one of our students! In the following video, a dad describes why he got extra reading help for his daughter. Watch, “A tenacious first-grader finds reading success!”

 

 

To watch more students and their families talk about their learning journey and experience at Lindamood-Bell, go to Real Stories.

 

Get Started

Contact us to discuss your child’s learning needs. We want to help make the difference of a lifetime for your child this school year!

 

Get in touch or call now:

 

US 800-233-1819.

UK +44 (0) 207 727 0660

Singapore (65) 6813 2425

School Year Support: Help for Your Struggling Student

Instruction, Learning Centers, , , , , ,

While a science experiment involving a baking soda and vinegar volcano may be fun and exciting for most students, it can be torture for those who have trouble reading the directions or following the procedural steps independently.

 

Ideally, a typical school day is filled with tons of opportunities to explore, learn, and grow — but for those who struggle to keep up with their peers, each day can present challenges that can lead to frustration, behavioral issues, and eventually lowered self-esteem.

 

Why are they struggling?

 

Students who are ready to learn are global, independent readers and thinkers. Reading is an integration of processing skills: word attack, sight word recognition, contextual fluency, oral vocabulary, and comprehension. Students who are poor decoders and spellers, or slow readers, may have weak symbol imagery—the ability to visualize letters in words. Students with poor comprehension, critical thinking, writing, and memory may have weak concept imagery—the ability to create an imagined gestalt (whole) from language. These difficulties are not only frustrating for students, but also prevent them from accessing school curriculum.

 

What Can Be Done? Help from your local Learning Center.

 

We believe that all students can be taught to read and comprehend to their potential. Our unique, research-validated instruction help students develop the imagery-language foundation necessary to read and comprehend content in the classroom. Traditional tutoring programs may work on homework once a week over the course of several semesters or even years. Because of this, our typical recommendations for daily instruction to change learning may be a new concept. We work with our students in a variety of ways —  in person or online and before, after or during the school day — so that we’re able to meet the needs of each child and family.

 

Why daily? Nanci Bell provides reasoning for daily intensive instruction in the following excerpt from Visualizing and Verbalizing for Language Comprehension and Thinking:

 

“The rate of learning gain can be improved with intensive intervention. Students with severe weakness in concept imagery may be years behind in language comprehension. For example, Johnny, a student in the fifth grade with reading comprehension at the second-grade level, has a three-year gap between his grade level and his reading comprehension. Even with adequate oral vocabulary and decoding skills, Johnny didn’t gain a year in reading comprehension for each year in school … intervention has to decrease the learning gap by increasing the rate of learning. To increase the rate of learning, you need to provide the right diagnosis and the right instruction, in the right environment. The last is often intensive intervention, four hours a day, five days a week, which results in years of gain in weeks of instruction.”

 

Watch a father and mother discuss the instruction that their adopted twin sons received at a Lindamood-Bell Learning Center:

 

 

A School Like No Other

 

In addition to offering individualized learning programs in each of our Learning Centers, we also have a unique private school that combines Lindamood-Bell instructional expertise with a full curriculum: The Lindamood-Bell Academy. We develop the imagery-language foundation for language and literacy skills and apply those skills to all curriculum and content. The Academy allows students who have struggled in a traditional school setting to be successful. Students can do a four- or six-hour school day either in person, online or both. To learn more about our proven, standards-aligned Academy, click here.

 

Getting Started

 

The first step is to see what may be affecting your child’s performance in the classroom. At our learning centers, we identify strengths and weaknesses that may be affecting school performance in reading, comprehension, and math. Our instruction is based on an individual’s learning needs. Daily instruction can happen after school or as part of a child’s school day. Students can make years of progress in just a matter of weeks.

 

Some students come to us with previous diagnoses such as dyslexia, autism spectrum disorders, or general learning challenges—and we make a difference for each of them.

 

Some students seek our help to enhance their skills or to just make learning easier—and we do.

 

If school is hard for your child, you need to know why and how to help. Identifying strengths and weaknesses is the first step toward helping your child finish the school year successfully.

 

A learning evaluation will uncover the strengths and weaknesses that are affecting school. In a thorough results consultation, we will discuss an individualized learning plan to make school easier. Contact us to discuss how school year instruction can make an impact on your child’s learning: 800-300-1818 or for more information about our evaluation, click here.