Anyone use Visualizing & Verbalizing (Lindamood-Bell) with a high schooler?

[Misty]

I would really like to remediate my 9th grader.. She has excellent decoding, phonemic awareness, spelling, etc.. But her comprehension is not great. She struggles with the meatier non-fiction that I've been giving her.. like Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography.. Or even anything that she has no interest in. She flies through fiction like it's candy.. She can actually read about a novel plus half a novel in one day. And she has always enjoyed quite a lot of non-fiction as well.. She is a "fact collector" and I have often referred to her as my own personal walking encyclopedia. But as we move into high school, I can see she is really going to struggle with college-level assignments in the future.. I know one of her problems is she needs to SLOW DOWN. She reads way too fast. But I would love to also go through Visualizing and Verbalizing (or something similar) with her.. However, the books only go up to 6th grade (that I have found on the Gander Publishing site). She hates it when I get lower grade levels of anything for her. She feels insulted. What can I do for her at this age?

 

I printed out the PQ4R guide for her to refer to. But still interested in the V&V program as well.

 

ETA: Concerning books like Ben Franklin's Autobiography.. She can't answer a single comprehension question correctly after reading about 10 pages.. She can answer one or two factual questions, like "how many siblings did Ben have?". But a question such as "Which best describes Ben's relationship with his brother?".. She has no idea (even with 4 multiple choice answers from which to choose!). She says she can't understand these books and can't visualize anything. She normally has good visualization with fiction, on the other hand. She "makes movies" in her mind as she reads fictional books. But she has trouble grasping the abstract concepts such as complex feelings (beyond happy, sad, angry), intentions, personal agendas, or passages that require the student to draw their own conclusions or impressions.. such as Ben's relationship with his brother. If the book had simply stated.. "Ben's relationship with his brother was horrible (or great)" then she would have known the answer.. But because the book described the relationship and then left the reader to decide.. She has no clue.

 

She also is able to write fiction with little effort, leaving out much of the abstract.. Her fiction writing is phenomenal and extremely creative though despite the missing abstract. She is an extremely creative person.. Always has been.. probably gifted in this area. When it comes to writing essays, she bombs it. What's going on here? Sometimes I think it's almost as if she has "memorized" how to write fiction because she has read so much of it over the years. does that make sense? And I must also mention she has been reading since age 3, always reading at least 5 grade levels ahead. I know she is somewhat hyperlexic.. I just need to know how to help her with this comprehension issue.

 

Oh, to help complete the picture of how she learns and what she struggles with (if this helps at all).. She also has issues with math.. She has working memory issues and nonverbal problem solving issues as well as visual-spatial issues.. Her penmanship is also dreadful.

Edited September 24, 2011 by Misty

[cathmom]

I don't understand how V & V would help with this. My 8 yo just went through the program.

[Misty]

So maybe this isn't the right program for her? I guess I'll stick with the PQ4R and see if that helps.