All posts by Amy Kessler

Teagan’s Story: A Struggling Reader Shines at Lindamood-Bell Academy

Teagan’s mom describes their family’s learning journey. Teagan, a bright, energetic student learned how to avoid reading at all costs. At Lindamood-Bell Academy, she is finally getting the intervention she needs while she progresses through school curriculum.

 

 

Join us July 15-19 for Lindamood-Bell Academy Week at our Learning Centers! Come in and find out how Lindamood-Bell Academy may be the right choice for your child.

 

To attend, find a Learning Center near you

Start the School Year With Sharpened Skills

At Lindamood-Bell, students often spend part of their summer gaining reading, comprehension, and math skills at our learning center. With improved abilities, they are able to return to school with confidence, ready to tackle the new year.  

 

Summer instruction at Lindamood-Bell is individualized to meet the needs of each student. Because it’s one-to-one, we’ll only spend time on what your child needs. 

 

For students who are currently struggling with reading, comprehension, or math summer instruction can jump-start a new or ongoing intensive instruction plan.

 

Some students may benefit from an enrichment program to advance in areas like writing, study skills, and test taking. Instruction can also help students apply their skills to a new task like story problems or reading fluency.

 

Watch our video to learn more:

 

 

Find your location or call us! 800-300-1818

How to Encourage Your Reluctant Reader

While you’d like your son or daughter to disappear into the land of Narnia or be swept up in a Harry Potter spell while reading, reality may reveal the opposite. In fact, your child might even say, “I hate reading,” and when finally sitting down with a book, emits forlorn cries of “Am I done yet?” or “How many more pages?” every few minutes.

 

But where does this reluctance come from? Has your child not found the types of books to get excited about? Is there frustration because of having to sound out every word? Is your child a fluent reader who struggles to comprehend what’s been read? Understanding the root of your reader’s reluctance is the first step in trying to find the best way to help.

 

Explore Your Child’s Interests —  via Books!

Thanks to inter-library loans and websites like Amazon and Scholastic, there are more books than ever available. Tap into your son or daughter’s interests when searching for new options. Animals, Minecraft, Star Wars, My Little Pony – you can 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 sea life before heading to Sea World.

 

Create a Positive Reading Atmosphere

Establish a time for quiet reading in your household as something to look forward to and enjoy! If your reluctant reader sees you reading regularly, he or she is less likely to view reading as a punishment or as something negative. Stepping away from TV time or iPad games as a family eliminates distractions and can allow your child to consider reading as an enjoyable activity.

 

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 independently. After you read or listen to a story, you can gauge your student’s comprehension by asking some imagery questions. Inquiring “How did you see that happening?” or “What do you picture happening next?” can launch an entertaining discussion of the story and allow you to see what your child is getting out of it.

 

Eliminate the Possibility of a Reading Weakness

No matter how many fun and exciting books your child is exposed to, reading may continue to be a source of strife if he or she has a decoding weakness. 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.

 

Tackle Reading Comprehension Head-On

Being a fluent reader doesn’t guarantee strong reading comprehension. If your child cannot “make a movie” in his or her mind while reading a story, comprehension may be lost. Concept imagery is the ability to create an imagined gestalt — or whole — from language. Listening to audiobooks or being read to won’t necessarily make comprehension any easier for a student who has a concept imagery weakness. Learn about the imagery-language connection for reading here.

 

In this video, a mother describes the transformation her daughter made in reading after instruction at Lindamood-Bell. 

 

4 Signs of Reading Difficulty

It’s only natural for parents to wonder how a child’s reading stacks up next to the child’s peers. This is especially the case when there’s an older sibling or friend in the picture who seems to breeze through the reading process. It is not always clear whether a child has a weakness that needs to be helped, or if reading simply hasn’t yet “clicked.”

 

Students might avoid reading, or say they “are bad” at it, or even that they dislike it. These concerns could be related to a true reading difficulty, and there are specific reading behaviors that every parent can watch for. Check out the following 4 signs that reveal when a student needs reading help.

 

If you’re not certain about one of these, have your child read grade-level text aloud to you.

 

1. Sounding out words is difficult

Some students have difficulty sounding out new words—even those words that “play fair.” They might add or omit sounds or syllables, or read sounds out of order. For example, the word stream comes out as “steam,” or they read grater as “garter” or “grate.

 

2. Difficulty learning and retaining sight words

Many common words “don’t play fair” (such as find and eye and thought), so recognizing them is the only way to read them correctly. And, because these words are common, they should be recognized quickly, leading to fluent paragraph reading. A student who has difficulty may attempt to sound out common words that they’d learned already, reading people as “pee/oh/plee,” for example. Students may also do a lot of guessing (e.g., reading people as “purple”).

 

3. Slow and laborious passage reading

Some students may be able to sound out words but can’t put it all together on the page. These readers get mired down in sounding out every word, and they may not recognize the same word when they encounter it in the next paragraph.

 

Slow decoding interferes with reading comprehension; by the time readers get to the end of a passage, they have lost the big picture, or meaning. This can be especially frustrating for students who are curious and love learning.

 

4. Poor spelling

Some students have difficulty identifying all of the needed phonemes (optnrty for opportunity); and, some students can spell phonetically but cannot retain spelling patterns (opertunity for opportunity).

 

Reading Help at Lindamood-Bell

For many students, a cause of reading difficulties is weak symbol imagery—the ability to visualize letters in your mind’s eye. This connection of imagery and language is necessary for sounding out new words, and for quickly recognizing letters and common words. Students who read fluently and self-correct their errors have strong symbol imagery. Learn more about symbol imagery and solutions for reading difficulties here.

 

A child who seems to have trouble reading could be behind, or may, in fact, be developmentally on-target for his or her age and grade. Regardless, if you observe signs of a reading difficulty, you need to find out why. A Learning Ability Evaluation uncovers the strengths and weaknesses that affect learning. While some students come to us with a previous diagnosis, such as dyslexia, many seek our help to enhance their skills or to just make learning easier—and we do!

 

In this video, a Lindamood-Bell instructor describes her own daughter’s journey in learning to read to her potential. She discusses the early signs of reading difficulty, the Learning Ability Evaluation process, and her daughter’s experience receiving intensive reading instruction at the learning center.

 

 

Contact us to discuss your child’s reading and for information about our Learning Ability Evaluation, the first steps in teaching students to read to their potential: 800-300-1818.

Imagine Better Homework | A Parent Workshop

 

This event has ended. For further information or questions regarding our instruction, please contact your local Learning Center.

If your child has a learning or attention issue, it can be tough to maintain good homework habits. Resolving to “establish a daily routine,” for example, may not affect why it is difficult for a student to complete homework in the first place. They may be missing a crucial step that good students are doing naturally.

 

Students of all ages should be creating mental images as they read a book, or listen to a teacher describe that night’s homework. They should be visualizing as they write something down in their planner, or as they compose a paragraph.  

 

Join us for a free workshop. Parents will learn how to establish the imagery-language foundation for homework.

 

Topics will include:

 

  • How to help your child keep track of assignments 
  • Asking questions that create mental images (and boost comprehension!) 
  • Using the imagery-language foundation to remember new vocabulary
  • Tips for managing homework when decoding is an issue

We look forward to helping make homework easier!

 

 

 

Close the Learning Gap with Daily Intensive Instruction

A bright and articulate eight-year-old, Jacob shifts uncomfortably in his seat when his teacher announces that the class will take turns reading aloud. “Maybe if I ask to go to the bathroom, I’ll miss my turn,” he thinks.

 

Jacob has an impressive vocabulary, and his teachers frequently tell him how smart he is. But he’s beginning to doubt them. “How smart can I be if I can’t even read?” he asks himself. On frequent mornings, he gets a stomach ache while thinking about facing the school day. When he opens a book, “was” turns into “saw.” And “through” and “though” and “thought” never sound like they’re supposed to. How can a person remember all of that?

 

For Jacob, reading is the hardest thing in the world, and no one seems to know why. His teachers and parents thought that reading would eventually  just “click” on its own. But students with a weakness in symbol imagery, which is the ability to visualize letters and sounds within words, may require remediation or additional explicit reading instruction. Weak symbol imagery causes difficulties in establishing sight words, contextual fluency, and spelling.

 

A few seats over, Emma is able to spell perfectly and decode new words with ease. However, she doesn’t seem to comprehend what she’s read. 

 

Mrs. Jones calls on Emma, who always seems to be a step behind in class, and asks her to read from Chapter 2. “What?” Emma asks. She twists the ends of her blonde ringlets as she waits for Mrs. Jones to repeat her request. It’s not that Emma doesn’t care or isn’t listening in the classroom — for her, directions seem to go in one ear and out the other. Emma reads the words on the page quickly and accurately, but she falls silent when Mrs. Jones asks what she thinks will happen next in the story.

 

For Emma, weak concept imagery—the ability to image a gestalt (whole)—may be the cause of her struggles. Weakness in concept imagery will interfere with reading and listening comprehension, memory, oral vocabulary, critical thinking, and writing.

  

As the critical third grade year continues, Jacob and Emma are likely to fall further and further behind. They may be present in the classroom every day, but they’re both missing out on content, and their self-esteem continues to quietly plummet.

 

At Lindamood-Bell, we believe that all students can be taught to read and comprehend to their potential. We identify strengths and weaknesses that may be affecting school performance, and our instruction is based on an individual’s learning needs. The school year is a great time to address those learning needs. By helping your child develop the underlying foundational skills for reading and comprehension, you’ll ensure that the elements of curriculum-based content aren’t missed because of an inability to decode or comprehend them. 

 

For a student who has fallen behind, the way to close the gap is often intensive instruction. Click here to learn more about how we’re able to make years of gains in weeks of instruction.

 

In this video, one family explains why they chose intensive reading instruction for a struggling child:

 

 

We want to be your partner in education and help make your child’s school year a success. To learn more, contact your local Learning Center

 

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

Tips for Parents: When the Teacher Recommends Reading Help

Research shows that students who read over the summer break gain 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 few 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, three 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. Contact us at 800-300-1818.

Imagine Better Reading Comprehension

Most reading experts agree on one thing: In order to comprehend what they read, students must have strong decoding skills and adequate oral vocabulary. In other words, a child must be able to accurately decode every word on the page, and know what each word means.

 

Unfortunately, many students who can decode well and understand words still have weak comprehension. What is the missing piece for these students?

 

Clinical research over the last thirty years indicates there is a separate comprehension weakness that is rarely identified. This weakness often undermines the reading process. It is a weakness, based in the sensory system, in creating an imaged gestalt or “whole.”

 

Students may have difficulty creating mental images for language. This weakness causes individuals to get only “parts” of information they read or hear, but not the whole.

 

Nanci Bell first became aware of the connection that underlies comprehension while she was teaching students struggling with literacy, many of whom had been previously diagnosed as dyslexic. Nanci has described that, at the time, she was unaware of a separate comprehension dysfunction. Like many others, she thought the difficulty with reading comprehension was caused by weak decoding and weak oral vocabulary.

 

In the following excerpt from Visualizing and Verbalizing, Nanci Bell describes the incident that sparked her passion to change learning for students struggling with weak comprehension.

 

Needing a break in the lesson from spelling word after word, I decide to have Allan, [a college student majoring in architecture], read and give me a verbal summary.  Handing him a college level skill book, I ask him to read aloud so I can be certain he is decoding accurately.

 

He accurately reads the page of material, and I take the book from him, saying, “Good job.  Tell me what you read.”

 

Allan gives me the very complete summary, beginning with the main idea and then including all the details.  To my amazement, he infers, concludes, predicts, and evaluates the material. He is confident and involved in the activity – a much different Allan than the one that struggles with spelling.

 

I stare at him, saying, “That was really an incredible summary.  How are you able to do that?”

 

Looking at me, surprised and now shy, Allan replies, “I don’t know.”

 

Realizing that Allan seems embarrassed and unsure of himself because of my question, I reassure him.  “That really was good. You have very good reading comprehension. How did you do that? If I know what you do to remember what you read, perhaps I can teach others to do it.”

 

Thoughtful, Allan replies, “I don’t know.”  Then, after a pause, he says, “I make movies when I read.”

 

A little surprised, I ask, “What do you mean, you make movies when you read?”

 

“I don’t know.  I just see movies in my head when I read.  The words turn into pictures and I just remember the pictures, the images.  Don’t you do that?”

 

Thinking about the books I’ve read, I finally answer, “Yes. I do. I picture what I read. I guess I’ve just not thought about it.”

 

“Do other people do that, too?”

 

“I don’t know … but I’ll find out …”

 

The statement “I make movies when I read” prompted my twenty-five-year-odyssey exploring the relationship between imagery and language.  Today, twenty years after first writing Visualizing and Verbalizing for Language Comprehension and Thinking, I am still passionate about the importance of imagery to comprehension and cognition. (Bell, 2007, pp. 4-8)

 

Over the past 30 years, more than 40,000 students have been taught how to learn to their potential at Lindamood-Bell. While some of our students have a previous diagnosis that affects learning, others seek our help to enhance their skills or to just make learning easier—and we make a difference for each one of them.

 

The Visualizing and Verbalizing™ program develops concept imagery—the ability to create an imagined or imaged gestalt from language—as a basis for comprehension and higher order thinking. The development of concept imagery improves reading and listening comprehension, memory, oral vocabulary, critical thinking, and writing.

 

A mom describes how Visualizing and Verbalizing improved her daughter’s reading comprehension:

 

 

If you have concerns about your child’s language comprehension ability, get in touch with one of our learning centers to get started:  Double Bay (02) 9328 7119 | Chatswood (02) 9410 1006

Imagine a Love of Reading!

At Lindamood-Bell, we believe that all individuals can learn how to read to their potential—including those who have a previous diagnosis of dyslexia.

 

Over the course of nearly three decades, Lindamood-Bell has worked with thousands of individuals. Sitting with a child or an adult who struggles to read a word provides unique insight into the learning process. Our success with students is due to our unique approach, including our research-validated, sensory-cognitive instruction.

 

The Challenge

Unfortunately, many students, even those who have had years of extra help, continue to struggle with year-level text. Perhaps they sound out a word eventually—but it is slow and labored. They may take so long to sound out the word that they miss the meaning of the text altogether. Or, they may substitute words when reading a paragraph. For example, they may read ‘production’ instead of ‘perfection.’

 

For many individuals, even those who have received extensive reading support, sight word recognition remains difficult. They may attempt to use phonics strategies for most words—such as reading  /pee/ /oh/ /plee/ for the word ‘people.’ When they finally conquer a word, they might not recognize that same word when they encounter it in the next paragraph.

 

Also, while a student may be able to spell words phonetically, they are unable to remember the visual patterns of words (orthography). For example, they may spell the word “friend” as “f-r-e-n-d.”

 

A Missing Connection

An important aspect of reading and spelling is symbol imagery, which underlies both phonological and orthographic processing. Symbol imagery is the ability to visualize letters in your mind’s eye. This connection of imagery and language is necessary for sounding out new words, as well as quickly recognizing letters and common words. Students who read fluently, and are able to self-correct their errors, have strong symbol imagery.

 

Traditional reading help focuses on how to sound out words as well as reading and spelling rules. While these activities have value, they do not develop the imagery-language foundation. They do not change how a student is processing language. This is why reading may still be extremely difficult for students who have received years of tutoring.

 

A Unique Approach

The Seeing Stars® program develops symbol imagery for reading and spelling. Long overlooked in the field of reading research, symbol imagery is an important function that can now be assessed and developed.

 

Our instructors’ language stimulates an individual’s symbol imagery. For example, when a teacher says, “What letters do you see for ‘top’?” she is prompting the student to picture the letters t-o-p. By applying this skill to phonological and orthographic processing, reading, spelling, sight word and contextual fluency skills are improved.  Improved symbol imagery can change reading, regardless of a student’s age or struggle with literacy—including those with a previous diagnosis of dyslexia.

 

In this video, a mom shares the story of her dyslexic son learning how to read at one of our learning centers:

 

 

Research-validated

We continually monitor student results to ensure that we maintain our exceptional standard of quality. View our Learning Center results with students who have reading difficulties here.

 

We also actively participate in neurological and behavioral research on our programs and instruction. Numerous peer-reviewed articles based on studies examining the effectiveness of our instruction with dyslexic students have been published in scholarly journals.

 

A University of Washington study recently published in the journal, Nature Communications, examines changes to brain connections and reading performance as a result of Seeing Stars reading instruction at a Lindamood-Bell Learning Center. Read more and access the full article here.

 

If you would like further information or have questions regarding our instruction, please contact us: Double Bay (02) 9328 7119 | Chatswood (02) 9410 1006

Lindamood-Bell Academy Online–Education Wherever You Are

At Lindamood-Bell Academy, we provide an online education that’s right for your family. Our virtual instruction embodies Lindamood-Bell quality in all regards—our school is personal, flexible, and interactive.

 

One student, Noah, takes advantage of Academy to get what his mother calls “the best education of his life” while joining his parents on their global travels.

 

She says, “I believe that LBA offers great value.  For the first time in Noah’s history of schooling, I feel that he is free to learn at his own pace, without judgment.  

 

The remote learning program is wonderful for our family. This week, Noah is studying from the Netherlands and Austria.  The fact that Academy is offered online allows our family to travel, while our son still receives a top-notch education.

 

The Lindamood-Bell Academy team is easily accessible; there is an open line of communication between teachers, staff, and parents. I feel very comfortable picking up the phone to communicate my thoughts, and my questions are always answered quickly and efficiently.”

 

Meet Noah!

 

 

A great solution for many students

✔ Learners Who Need A Flexible Environment

Lindamood-Bell Academy is located where each child needs to learn. Students can attend in person, online, or both. This works well for homeschool families, students who live far from a center, have health challenges, or who will be traveling or moving during the school year. Your child’s schooling will stay on track wherever the world takes them.

 

✔ Students With Challenging Schedules

Academy scheduling is flexible, and students move through the curriculum at their own pace. Students who have careers or other obligations that interfere with traditional school schedules will attend a school that works with their schedule. Breaks for travel, performances, and more are easily incorporated.

 

Lindamood-Bell Academy online offers a unique opportunity for students to thrive.

 

Find out about admissions, tuition, curriculum and more. We’d love to talk to you about your student’s learning needs–Get Started


My Lindamood-Bell Academy Story

-from Cassie, Noah’s mom

 

In my eyes, the Academy just makes sense.  Always before, there was a disconnect between school curriculum and Lindamood-Bell techniques.  Now, in Academy, Lindamood-Bell techniques are used to help understand the academic curriculum. Noah has been able to see how to actually apply the strategies learned at Lindamood-Bell in his academic coursework.  Additionally, integrating Seeing Stars, Visualizing and Verbalizing, and On Cloud Nine into the school year, created a further connection between effective strategies and actual coursework.

 

Our family has been so thrilled with the one-on-one attention of LBA. Noah is supported as he journeys through his academic curriculum.  He is free to go at his own pace, without judgment. There is time to stop and review, and he is not forced to move on until he demonstrates mastery.  Additionally, the LBA team is easily accessible. There is an open line of communication between teachers, staff, and parents. I feel very comfortable picking up the phone to communicate my thoughts, and my questions are always answered quickly and efficiently.

 

We have been able to change and manipulate Noah’s daily work based on his specific needs.  For instance, this year, we decided that he was still weak in his writing, so we decided to implement writing and editing into his curriculum more often.

 

Overall, I believe that LBA offers great value.  Noah is receiving one-on-one instruction from his teachers, and he has a consultant that is carefully following his progress.  For the first time in Noah’s history of schooling, I feel that he is free to learn at his own pace, without judgment. I believe that he is in good hands when he is studying in the center, and the remote learning program is wonderful for our family.  This week, Noah is studying from the Netherlands and Austria. The fact that Academy is offered online allows our family to travel, while still receiving a top-notch education.

 

As a former educator, I know that Noah is receiving the best education of his life.

 

– Cassie, A Lindamood-Bell Academy Parent