LMB's Visualizing and Verbalizing

[imagine.more]

So I'm considering DIYing Visualizing and Verbalizing at home with Ana this summer and wondering if I can get any feedback from others who have done that. I'm confident now that I can learn it and implement it, which I was unsure about last year when we were just diving into this remediation stuff :)  She's seriously lacking in language development for her age and her vocabulary is still at a 6 year old's level but she doesn't learn new vocabulary even with direct instruction in it at home and lots of books and discussion of new words. Her oral comprehension is even worse, she just cannot seem to put sentences together into a good mental image, kwim? So the V/V seems to really hit where she needs it and then hopefully she can learn vocabulary more easily afterwards if she can visualize better. 

 

First, any practical tips on implementing it at home? How often/intense of sessions did you do? I know LMB does like 4 hours 5 days a week for a month or two but that's with rotating tutors to keep them fresh, lol! 

 

Second, what elements of the kit are most necessary to buy, which are nice to have, and which are unnecessary fluff? I know I'll buy the teacher's manual of course but some of the picture and sentence flip boards seem kinda essential too. Would it be too much work to DIY those? (keep in mind I'm 6 months pregnant and we're moving in 2 weeks :)....and yes I know we're crazy, lol)  How much would you say you spent overall to implement it on your own at home?

[PeterPan]

Sometimes kids aren't visualizing because they have developmental vision problems.  So if you do LMB V/V, which is a fine program, but they have developmental vision problems, you're sort of beating against that wall, kwim?  

 

So you might get her eyes checked, even with just a basic annual exam, by a developmental optometrist, just to make sure there's nothing up there.  Then, if you know there's nothing holding her back, you might consider visualizing with single words.  Given her receptive language issues and the hearing issues, it might be a big jump to go all the way to the texts in V/V, kwim?  

 

The VT place we used wanted dd to visualize first for single words.  They started her there because her developmental vision problems had totally shut down her visualization.  Remember, with her ADHD she *should* be VSL by brain bent.  It just wasn't showing because it got glitched.  So they started her with single words, then moved up to things like visualizing a shopping list.  They'd use something like a mental tree or placing the items in a room or how you'd walk through the store and used that visualization of multiple single items to build up her ability.  

 

If you did it like that, you could customize, using vocabulary that fits her.  For instance, you might use the cards from an inexpensive memory game set that has vocabulary appropriate to her.  Or tweak it more ways, showing a card that she looks at for 20 seconds then telling her to close her eyes, visualize, and describe it back to you.  V/V does this with sentences, but again you can do it for free, at her level, with single words or phrases if you want.  You could use pictures from sequencing activities and have her narrate sentences for the pictures.  Then, having studied the picture, she would close her eyes and answer questions about the picture.  (What color is the ball? How many candles were on the cake?) V/V goes entirely text/language to visualization, which is fine and useful, but you can also go images to visualization.  It might be easier for her to go images to visualization before she goes language to visualization, depending on where she's at with her ability to visualize.

 

In general, if she needs VT, I would do the VT and wait on the V/V.  

 

Congrats on your upcoming little one!  :)

[imagine.more]

Fortunately her vision is fine, besides being slightly far-sighted which she has reading glasses for. Her prescription is seriously +0.25, lol! No other developmental problems like vision tracking issues or convergence. She was checked in 3rd grade because of her learning disabilities and hearing issues, they wanted to rule out any vision problems as well and the only thing that came up was the mild far-sightedness. 

 

I *think* her problem is just that she has such low vocabulary from low exposure to words from being 50% deaf for years before it was caught AND being in a low-language family that she hasn't developed a good ability to understand new vocabulary....it's all just random words being spoken at her, if that makes sense. We'll go over a new word but it will not stick, she'll still forget what it means and not be able to use it in context on her own. With our neurotypical kids a quick "oh, that means ............." is enough for them to get a basic understanding of what it means and after several exposures to a word they'll be using it correctly on their own. Ana doesn't work that way. 

 

So when I watched Nanci Bell's 1 hour long video and read numerous reviews on Visualizing and Verbalizing it seems that V/V starts out with single words, then moves to sentences, then paragraphs. Is that not true? Does it really start out on the whole sentence level without any work at the individual word level? And I'm really looking at more the overall method than following the curriculum to a T, even the method is something different that we haven't tried because it's not the usual way of teaching. 

 

I'd love to find a set of vocab cards appropriate to her but I haven't found any. They seem to go straight from stuff for very young or very mentally challenged kids like "cow, horse, spoon, television, table, book, pencil, pen" to abstract SAT prep kinda words like "disdain, scold, numerous, procrastinate". She's in between those. She's got the language of a typical 6 year old, so common everyday nouns and verbs she's solid on. But then you get to more complex verbs or adverbs or adjectives and she starts to flounder. And subject-specific words like tundra or island or peninsula....we've learned these concepts extensively I thought but they don't stick in her mind and she couldn't possibly describe those things back to you. And at the sentence level she really struggles. She AND her hearing sister have atrocious sentence structure. Basically they speak and write in random phrases without clarification or detail. And not just out of laziness, they truly a) don't see what's wrong with the way they said things and b) cannot usually produce a complete or complex sentence when guided. It was fascinating chatting with her 14 year old sister's foster mom about what they've been struggling with in that regard! 

 

Sorry if that's a lot of jumbled info. Just trying to get across where she's at as far as language development. It's hard since obviously she doesn't have any writing samples since she can't write much and it's so misspelled you'd never be able to decipher it anyway. :)

[Crimson Wife]

In terms of sentence structure, I'm wondering if Montessori grammar would help because it's so highly visual. Maybe paired with MCT's Sentence Island if that isn't too wordy.

 

Prepositions, adjectives, and adverbs have been major targets in my little one's ABA therapy because she doesn't pick them up incidentally. The therapists use visual cues to teach because she picks it up faster that way. So if the therapist and DD are playing with My Little Ponies, the therapist might put the ponies in different locations and ask DD to give her the one that is "under the chair" or "behind the book" or whatever the target preposition is. With a teen you'd need to make the activity age-appropriate but you get the idea.

[PeterPan]

You've been looking at V/V more recently than I have.  I don't know why I was thinking they started with larger chunks.  It makes sense that they would start with words.  You know what's weird is ds does that thing with not remembering a new word when you explain it, but he DOES have a very good vocabulary for his age. His sentence level receptive language is crazy low.  I think the dyslexia and ADHD are definitely playing into that.   I keep a kindle on with audiobooks for HOURS every day.

 

So I'm just thinking out loud here and don't really know, but if your goal is to drive vocabulary acquisition (not visualization and reading comprehension), then maybe surround her with more language for more repetition and context?  Have you consulted with an SLP with experience with hearing loss?  Did they have any suggestions?  That's who I would be asking.  Sometimes you can even just call people up and pick their brains and say you know, I'm trying to figure out if my kid needs intervention or if there are things I can do with her at home, she has X% hearing loss, only recently found out, vocabulary at this level, blah blah, what would you recommend...  Sometimes people will just talk with you and give you ideas, kwim?  Sometimes there's a more effective therapy intervention, and sometimes they know it's just making up through hours of xyz and that there's not a magic thing but more the accumulation of things.  But I have no experience on that to help you, sigh.  I just know when I don't know, I call people and pick their brains to see what I can learn.  :)

[PeterPan]

Uh, backing up here a second.  You're wanting to work on vocabulary?  Are you taking the time to learn the vocabulary in Barton?  My ds has crazy high vocabulary for his age, but he doesn't know all those words.  And even when he does know the words, he has lots of issues with homonyms, multiple meanings, etc.  I have him make a sentence with every word he reads.  So I put all the words from his Barton lessons into Quizlet to practice, and at least the first time we read through them he composes oral sentences for EVERY SINGLE WORD.  That way I know he knows what he's reading and isn't just decoding jibberish, kwim?  

 

Barton is already giving you grammar, giving it to you.  You can take the foundation she is giving you, which is exceedingly similar to Shurley, and use that to compose sentences.  I do this with ds.  I can't recall if Barton says to or not, but it's a good exercise and something I do.  His sentences tend to be very simple on their own, so I'm trying to stretch his grammatical construction to make it more age (and IQ) appropriate.  Barton divides the sentences into who phrases, did what phrases, where phrases, and add-on phrases.  So we read through all them to practice, and then we practice going through, picking phrases and building our own silly sentences.  Then do the same thing, putting those on dice and practicing.  Or put them on a spinner.  Write the sentences on a chalkboard but take turns so the sentences get really silly but grammatically correct!  

 

I don't think there's a need for a separate grammar on top of Barton, not if you really milk what she's giving you.  

 

I don't have good advice beyond that.  I'm not sure what is fixed and what is reality.  I think we do what we can do and some things just are what they are.  :(

[imagine.more]

Oh Elizabeth, yes the calling people and picking their brains is what I do too, haha! I don't even care if I annoy people with questions anymore, I just try to push politely for as much info as they will share. I'm like a knowledge hoarder right now on special needs education :) 

 

Anyway, I agree that Barton is giving  a good foundation in grammar and we have talked about that a bit in real life, who and did what phrases and how you need both to make a complete sentence, etc. I'm considering starting Shurley Grammar next year school (should be done with Barton 5 or 6 by then) since that seems to be a similar approach and it's got the song element which I know works well for DD. 

 

My goals are multifaceted; to drive both vocabulary AND comprehension. Right now she doesn't comprehend what she reads or hears so exposure to audiobooks, read-alouds, and written leveled stories aren't helping because it's in one ear and out the other. My suspicion is that she's struggling to visualize a new word even with pictures and definitions but that if I could walk her through visualizing it she could then remember and apply it more easily. Plus the process of building a sentence to describe a picture would be huge in pushing her further to use and find new words to describe accurately. Right now she thinks "4 days" and "4 months" is like basically the same thing, no big deal if she says the wrong word there. Similarly she'd mess up and say "Tobias is in the couch" vs "Tobias is on the couch." because again, she figures they're close enough and people know what she means. If she could visualize what "Tobias is in the couch." would look like (ridiculous, lol!) then she could *see* why the sentence is ridiculous and needs to be changed. Also, just the sheer amount of practice with formulating sentences and playing with describing single words would help.

 

Right now she receives 30 minutes of speech therapy once a week and they only work on STR blends and attributes and low-level items like that. So not high quality skill-builder OR remediation of her actual mental processes to allow her to learn better in the future. It's basically 30 minutes of practicing some new words or words she already knows. When we move I'm going to get her in with someone better hopefully but this is her second speech therapist in 2 years and they're all the same so I'm becoming a bit jaded. Having seen her struggle to read with the wrong approach for years (reading at a 1st grade level at 12!) and seeing her come up 2 grade levels in a year with Barton I'm no longer content to take a wait-and-see approach with bad therapies or curriculums. So I'm still searching for a good speech therapist whose brain I can pick but so far her speech therapists when asked are unable to answer my questions or give dumb suggestions like "go to this website and print off stories she can practice reading for comprehension"

 

Crimsonwife, I'll need to look into Montessori grammar in addition to or in place of Shurley grammar. I love Montessori stuff :) We do a Montessori-ish environment for our kids from ages 18 mos-5 years and it's worked well.  I often wish I could have provided DD that same start. Alas, I have to pick up where she's at. On the plus side I didn't have to potty train her or teach her to tie her shoes  :lol:

[PeterPan]

Have you looked at Linguisystems stuff?  Now it's called ProEd I think.  They usually have good options for things.  Super Duper is ok too.  Great Ideas for Teaching has good stuff.  Like literally, if you go look there, you're seeing the same stuff they'd be using.  

 

Try this section of their site and see if anything jumps out at you.  PRO-ED Inc.: Oral Language Abilities

 

 

[merry gardens]

I've done portions of Visualizing and Verbalizing. Some was done out of sequence by me before I knew what I was suppose to do, :o , When we did get around to trying to implement the program the way it was intended, I ended up substituted another program based on similar concepts for the first part instead of using LMB's V&V  materials.

 

Earlier on our dyslexia journey, I picked up "Vanilla Vocabulary", which is one of the supplemental V&V books they offer. Without any training on V&V, we just went through the Vanilla Vocabulary book I, word by word for several months. My ds was third grade-ish age at the time and it was interesting to hear his understanding of words--particularly prepositions. I still remember one sentence he created using the word "across"--He sentence was, "Jesus died on a cross."  Many of the vocabulary words duplicated with the Seeing Stars books we were also using at the time. We never finished that entire Vanilla Vocabulary book, but it and the Seeing Stars workbooks helped his vocabulary. *

 

 

Eventually, I bought an old V&V manual and I was preparing for doing it with my middle children one summer, but then I discovered IdeaChain.  IdeaChain is similar to the first parts of V&V, but IC has more scripting that what V&V had in the manual I had. (I believe LMB has since then added more step-by-step directions for tutors, but I was trying to do it from an earlier edition of the V&V manual that told tutors how to create their own materials.) The IC author offered phone support, and after speaking with her, I decided to use that program. IC covers visualizing words through sentences, while V&V continues from their onto paragraphs and more. I went with IC, (which was significantly less expensive that the V&V) and we finished it in less than a "semester". I very much liked that IC had a conclusion instead of continuing to provide more and more like V&V. The next "semester", I used some of V&V materials that take the imagery further into paragraphs.  We picked up some of the V&V  "Imagine That" books, (which I'd previously tried to do with one of mine before the training.) For the next few years, we used V&V's "See Time Fly" for history. (I supplemented, but it was V&V main history text and workbook for my child with dyslexia.)

 

We used all that along with Barton. Barton was the mainstay of our dyslexia remediation over here. I discovered Lindamood-Bell materials thanks to Susan Barton referring us to LiPS.  I wouldn't replace Barton with V&V, but I liked using some of the LMB materials as part of our homeschooling.

 

(Edit to add: We also did more work specifically on prepositions in several ways. Something like "in the couch" vs. "on the couch" requires comprehension of the /i/ vs. /o/ sounds, plus then comprehension of position. Lips and Barton gets that started by helping to distinguish the vowels sounds correctly. Vanilla Vocabulary and Seeing Stars helped too with understanding the words and using them in a sentence. The program IdeaChain that we used also works with prepositions. Plus along, one summer every morning the kids and I did some fun songs with movements developed by an occupational therapist, Genevieve Jereb--and some of those songs worked with prepositions. We worked on them in more ways beyond that. Prepositions are usually such little words that difficult to visualize on their own, but they make all the difference in visualizing and communicating effectively!)

 

[Crimson Wife]

 

Right now she receives 30 minutes of speech therapy once a week and they only work on STR blends and attributes and low-level items like that. So not high quality skill-builder OR remediation of her actual mental processes to allow her to learn better in the future. It's basically 30 minutes of practicing some new words or words she already knows. When we move I'm going to get her in with someone better hopefully but this is her second speech therapist in 2 years and they're all the same so I'm becoming a bit jaded. Having seen her struggle to read with the wrong approach for years (reading at a 1st grade level at 12!) and seeing her come up 2 grade levels in a year with Barton I'm no longer content to take a wait-and-see approach with bad therapies or curriculums. So I'm still searching for a good speech therapist whose brain I can pick but so far her speech therapists when asked are unable to answer my questions or give dumb suggestions like "go to this website and print off stories she can practice reading for comprehension"

 

I'm going to the Moog Center in St. Louis next month with my little one for a parent-child workshop and evaluation. During the workshop they've scheduled time for a 1-on-1 consultation with their staff. I'm planning on asking what materials will be helpful in developing my DD's language. She's more at a preschool level than  elementary but I can ask about elementary level materials since that's where she'll (hopefully) be in the not-too-distant future.

 

[NYmomof4]

My daughter and I did IdeaChain a couple of years ago, and I wanted to chime in. I never used VV so I can't compare, but I found IdeaChain to be super easy to implement, totally scripted, and more than sufficient for working on visualization. The author of the program was very nice, spoke on the phone with me a couple of times, and emailed as a follow up.

 

 

I also found IdeaChain to be quite helpful as a way of working on expressive language. Beyond teaching kids to visualize, it also offers them an opportunity to use the language and describe things in a logical manner. For kids with expressive language delays, every learning opportunity counts. My daughter's writing improved as we moved through the program, and she got better at describing objects or places.

 

 

Btw, I still have the program and would be willing to sell. PM me if you are interested or have any questions.