FAQ For Schools

Our approach is based on the cognitive science of learning, instruction that is informed by the science of the brain and its mental processes.   Specifically, instruction in reading, language comprehension, and math is concerned with how students learn, process information, and develop mastery. Through sensory-cognitive instruction, reading and math processes are developed and applied to components, including phonemic awareness, phonics, orthographic processing, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and conceptual understanding in math.  

We partner with schools nationwide and internationally to offer four levels of professional learning. Professional development is most effective when focused, sustained, and supported over time. Educators can participate in introductory workshops, on-demand review and skills boost courses,  ongoing, job-embedded support, collaborative meetings, administrator check-ins, and more. 

Attendees receive certificates of completion for each level, and continuing education credit is available. Completing any or all levels does not include certification or endorsement by Lindamood-Bell, and our professional development services are not designed as a “train the trainer” model. This ensures the quality and fidelity of the programs. 

Learn about our levels of PD here.

Yes, instruction is explicit, prescriptive, and cumulative and develops the components of reading supported by decades of reading research. This includes systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, orthographic processing, fluency, spelling, vocabulary, comprehension, and higher-order thinking.  

However, our approach differs from most other common programs that focus on phonological processing and phonics, which rely on many rules and word study strategies to teach reading with little attention to the cognitive processes that support orthographic processing, fluency, comprehension, and independence.

Anyone interested in the cognitive science of learning can participate in our Level 1 introductory workshops and Level 2 online community. Educators affiliated with a school can pursue Level 3 job-embedded professional development and more. Special education staff, speech and language pathologists, dyslexia specialists, reading interventionists, K-2 English language arts teachers, reading coaches, private tutors, and parents all participate in our workshops.  

See our online workshop schedule here, or click here to inquire about group rates.

The workshops you take are dependent on your students’ needs. Contact us to speak to a program expert to discuss your specific PD and student needs. Below are the areas of reading and learning each program addresses:   

• Seeing Stars: Symbol Imagery for Phonological and Orthographic Processing in Reading and Spelling
  • For students who struggle with phonemic awareness, phonics, spelling, decoding, orthographic memory, sight word retention, fluency
  • Effective through all tiers of instruction and as a dyslexia intervention
  • Seeing Stars Fact Sheet

• Visualizing and Verbalizing: for Language Comprehension and Thinking 
  • For students with weak recall, vocabulary, comprehension, higher-order thinking, despite adequate decoding skills  
  • Effective through all tiers of instruction and as a special education intervention
  • Visualizing and Verbalizing Fact Sheet

• Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing Program (LiPS): for Reading, Spelling, and Speech
  • For students with specific struggles in phonemic awareness, phonics, spelling, decoding, speech
  • Effective as a targeted and intensive intervention, Tiers 2-3, and as a dyslexia intervention

• Talkies: for Oral Language, Comprehension, and Expression
  • For students with language delays, those who have very limited verbal skills, students who are non-verbal
  • Effective as in intensive intervention, Tier 3

• On Cloud Nine: Visualizing and Verbalizing for Math
  • For students who struggle with math conceptualization and computation, including number sense, word problems, visual number line, math facts, arithmetic skills up to decimals and fractions.  
  • Effective through all tiers of instruction

 Explore a sample of each program manual here.

The programs are used effectively for students pre-K through adult. They are differentiated based on a student’s learning profile and needs.

Each program follows a universal scope and sequence of steps, with the level of difficulty and pace of forward movement in the teacher’s control. Our approach is effective as one-on-one instruction, in groups, in classrooms, as interventions, and as a supplement to classroom curriculum.

See how using our programs in the classroom built year-over-year capacity in a district here.

Yes. Programs are most effective when delivered in the sequence of steps presented in the workshop, and also used as best practices in the teaching and learning process to improve and build upon other programs and curricula.

Educators are encouraged to use available data and assessments to determine their students’ specific instructional needs, then choose the appropriate program based on those needs.  There are also many standardized tests available to measure the specific skills of reading, including phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension.  

Learn more about assessing here, and find recommended standardized assessments here 

Workshops are online, live, interactive, and range from 14-20 hours over multiple days. Lindamood-Bell CEUs are included, and staff have the option to earn post-graduate level professional development credits. Attendees receive free access to online review courses for one year after the workshop, with extra Lindamood-Bell CEUs available. Inservice workshops (online and in person) are also available for groups of educators.

Yes, our approach includes a substantial research and evidence base on students with, or at-risk for, dyslexia. Our sensory-cognitive instruction is often a critical missing piece for struggling readers, including for many who have already received intervention in other reading programs and structured literacy approaches.  

Watch how Seeing Stars “rewires” the brain here.

Read neurological research surrounding dyslexia and Lindamood-Bell programs here.

Sensory-cognitive instruction supports best practices in English Language Development and has been shown to accelerate the learning process for ELs in reading. 

Click here to learn how our approach aligns with English Language Development. 

Our approach has similarities to O-G, such as explicit, systematic, multisensory instruction in the the component parts of reading—phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.  Our approach differs in its focus on the underlying sensory-cognitive processes of symbol imagery and concept imagery. These skills underlie phonological and orthographic processing, automaticity, and language comprehension. They are often the missing literacy pieces for students who have had instruction in typical structured literacy programs but continue to struggle with reading.  

Most programs include a Progress Monitoring Chart, which is used to plan and track student or group progress. Day-to-day progress is also noted on material trackers within some kits, and supplemented with real-time, informal notes taken by the teacher. In our workshops, educators are taught to diagnose in-the-moment and fluidly make changes to the lesson as needed. This makes each teacher-crafted lesson plan another progress monitoring tool, and the instruction itself a constant formative assessment.

Lindamood-Bell’s Response to Intervention (RtI) model was created to fit within a district’s MTSS model.  

See our RtI model here.

We offer multiple avenues for ongoing support, from online forums and monthly instruction meetings to job-embedded support, administrator support, reporting, and community outreach.  Our goal is to build capacity and foster district-driven sustainability.

Learn more about our four levels of professional development here.

Each program requires a comprehensive instructor’s kit, available through Gander Publishing.  Kits are not consumable, so each kit can be used with multiple students or groups, year to year, until the materials are so well-loved they need replacing.

Take a video tour of each program kit here. 

Workshop participants pay a service fee as well as a discounted materials fee. On the online workshop schedule page, click the orange “Get Started” button next to the workshop of your choice for pricing. This pricing information is applicable for our public Level 1 workshops.  

For discounted group rates, request pricing through this form. 

Yes.  A randomized controlled trial involving children with Autism Spectrum Disorders  investigated the constructs of Dual Coding Theory (DCT) using the Visualizing and Verbalizing (V/V) program to develop oral and written language comprehension. Strength of connectivity between two brain regions was significantly greater for the V/V group. In addition, the V/V group also had a significantly larger change in reading comprehension than the control group.

Read more about the study here, or watch a presentation on the findings here.

The Visualizing and Verbalizing program develops the sensory-cognitive skill of concept imagery as a basis for language comprehension and higher order thinking. Typical comprehension strategies assume the processing skills of imagery and memory for getting the main idea, recalling details, making inferences, or comparing and contrasting. Students with weak concept imagery, even with adequate decoding and oral vocabulary skills, must be explicitly taught how to visualize language to benefit from comprehension strategies.    

Watch a four-minute explanation of concept imagery here.

We partner with schools and districts to provide job-embedded support. Coaching follows an “I teach, we teach, you teach” format between a Lindamood-Bell instructional expert and a newly-trained teacher. Lindamood-Bell provides differentiated lesson plans for small groups and written feedback for teachers with tips and recommendations for refinement. Coaching also includes monthly collaborative meetings for focused instructional topics, principal overviews, administrator walk-throughs, end of year reporting and more. With regular, job-embedded support, interventions can be implemented with high quality and fidelity, and sustain themselves over time.  

See what Lindamood-Bell Job-Embedded Professional Development looks like here.

Yes. Our approach follows best practices aligned to standards for English Language Arts.  Instruction addresses the foundations of reading and skills essential for developing the capacities of the literate individual around reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language.  

Yes. Our approach addresses the reading components identified by the National Reading Panel Report (2000) and are explicit, systematic, and structured. We also offer best practices in professional development, which is an essential component for effective literacy and dyslexia policies.  

Read about Lindamood-Bell’s alignment with one state’s literary legislation here.

In addition to decades of research and results in clinical settings, Lindamood-Bell has demonstrated substantial evidence of effectiveness with schools for more than 30 years. We have dozens of case studies with diverse schools and learning populations including special education, Title 1, high minority, and English learners. Our partnerships include successful school improvement grants, Turnaround/Transformation initiatives, MTSS/RtI solutions, and special education interventions.  Click here to see some of our profiles of success.