Wow, my dd really needs LiPS - what do you think?

[momsuz123]

So we have been doing LiPS for a few days now. I try and do 2 sessions a day, keeping them a little shorter.

 

DD, 6 y/o, has been making good progress. Then today I had two tiles out "ig". I said this word, then said can you change "ig" to "kig"? We are doing a vertical path and only have 6 consonants and 3 vowels that we are working with. We are doing nonsense words along with real words. She just could not get this word. at. all.

 

She insisted it was "gik". I tried to stay with the asking a question theme, and I could tell she was losing it, so I quickly said let's do a different word and went from there.

 

She also ran into this with "bod" changing to "bot". Boy, that was really tough.

 

My heart hurts when I realize how she just doesn't "hear" what I hear. Any advice or suggestions? Similar issues? Sometimes I feel I am the only one with a child like this.

[merry gardens]

So we have been doing LiPS for a few days now. I try and do 2 sessions a day, keeping them a little shorter.

 

DD, 6 y/o, has been making good progress. Then today I had two tiles out "ig". I said this word, then said can you change "ig" to "kig"? We are doing a vertical path and only have 6 consonants and 3 vowels that we are working with. We are doing nonsense words along with real words. She just could not get this word. at. all.

 

She insisted it was "gik". I tried to stay with the asking a question theme, and I could tell she was losing it, so I quickly said let's do a different word and went from there.

 

She also ran into this with "bod" changing to "bot". Boy, that was really tough.

 

My heart hurts when I realize how she just doesn't "hear" what I hear. Any advice or suggestions? Similar issues? Sometimes I feel I am the only one with a child like this.

I'm surprised that you are already doing that part of LiPS! If so, you went through that part really, really fast. More sessions a day isn't always helpful. But you say that she's making good progress, so don't get discouraged when you see her struggle with some of this.

 

If she can't hear the differences, that is likely the reason why LiPS was recommended in the first place. It teaches how those sounds are produced so she can feel and see the difference. Hearing the difference may follow, (as it did with my ds,) but first they need to recognize that there is a difference. Some of those differences are very, very slight--especially the differences between the "noisy and quiet brothers". "Kig" is a more difficult word because the k and g are "brothers" and their sounds are made very quickly. The difference can be detected the difference by putting her hand on her throat. Same with /d/ and /t/--hand on throat.

 

Are you working with pictures or with letters? If you are working with pictures, then from what you wrote it sounds like she chose the correct mouth pictures. Be positive! Encourage her and allow her to be successful.

 

Maybe hold off on pairing the "brothers" together in the same cvc word until she can clearly and easily figure out which one to use in cv and vc words, and also clearly and easily figure out which to use in cvc words that aren't two of the same "brothers". OR, go ahead and try to work them, but realize that they will be tougher and will likely take more time. (I took the other path and we didn't get to cvc words until much later.)

 

I'm looking at my old LiPS manual and I don't know how much was changed in the newer editions. But if the manuals are similar, look over Chapter 4 on introducing consonant pairs again.

 

And lastly, if you don't mind my sharing this...You might be trying to push yourself too fast. LiPS is a program that even professionals speech therapists and special education teachers take training sessions from Lindamood-Bell to learn. I couldn't find other options when I chose to do LiPS at home without the training. I studied the LiPS manual rather intensely for at least a week or two before I ordered supplies from Gander Publishing--and then I studied the materials longer still before doing them with my ds.

Edited March 9, 2012 by merry gardens

[momsuz123]

Thanks Merry Gardens. I am agreeing with everything you said. We started with the pictures of lips, then isolating the sound, etc. We were going slow, I thought. She seemed she was ready for more. But I agree. When that happened yesterday, I realized I can't do brothers yet. Even though in isolation she could get it, but together she can't hear the difference. I thought maybe I went to fast also. I think I will back up some and just stay put longer.

 

Like I said though, I have a heavy heart realizing what she "hears", and doesn't hear. No wonder reading, spelling, etc has been hard. Then throw in the vision component. Poor thing. I have to remind myself when she seems bored, that often is a sign that something is hard. Maybe I will back off too on 1 lesson a day?

 

I think I am going to go back and focus on the differences of brothers for a start.

 

Thanks.

[Lecka]

I spent a lot of time just doing examples for my son, never asking him to supply the answer. I would require him to watch me, I would require him to move the tiles while I did sounds (copying what he had watched), I would require him to say the sounds while I moved tiles (again copying), and keep doing that for a while, before even requiring him to completely copy me. That is what it took for him to successfully copy me!!!!!!!

 

But when it starts to click it is wonderful!!!!

 

We had, I think, 2-3 weeks of him just copying me this way, and copying me in blending sounds, and copying me in segmenting, and copying me in word chains (where you change one letter in a little word).

 

We spent time on just words like up, in, at, am before even having an initial consonant.

 

Yes, it is that hard, and if you can make it easier (by breaking it down into a smaller step) in any way, that is the thing to do.

 

I would also say, please don't take advantage of your child having a good nature and wanting to cooperate and please you. I did this and my son became too upset with never being able to get a right answer (this happened while I was trying to do traditional things) and he was having avoidant behavior. I still push him but I *don't* feel like "this is stuff kids are supposed to do when they are 4 and you are 6" anymore -- that is a bad attitude ime.

 

I did that kind of letter tiles, moving the tiles around, with AAS (and Reading Reflex and something else, I also had the free blending and segmenting supplement from Abecedarian, and I had purchased Barton level 1) while my son was in speech therapy 2 hours/week.

 

Also -- I didn't use any of the "difficult" consonants at all for quite a while. For my son -- he could do all the vowels, and he could do l,m,p,n,t type consonants. b,d,k,g were all ones he didn't need to do. s was kind-of hard for him also. I only did the exercises with the easy consonants for a long time.

 

And a warning.... consonant blends are extremely difficult, they just take a lot of time and examples, when it gets to that point. I think that was the most frustrating point here.

 

K/G/D/T are major difficulties here, too. My son never said the K and G sounds... he didn't seem to hear them at all until he was taught to hear and say them in speech. Here those are the hardest consonants.

 

edit: My son actually spent months on K/G/D/T in speech therapy. Some of the other sounds he spent less time on, but the least was "ch" and I think he did that in 3 sessions. I didn't do the part of showing him how to move his mouth or tongue, or how to make the noises in his throat, or listen for the differences, and do picture sorts for the different sounds... that was all at speech for him. But I did do the tiles.

Edited March 9, 2012 by Lecka

[momsuz123]

Interesting points Lecka, thanks. I am really trying to stick with the Lips curriculum doing a vertical path. So, the only consonants we have are P,B, T,D,K, and G. The vowels are I, E, OO. She can isolate each individual sound good. She can do VC and CV with the above letters, it was just interesting (and sad) to see how hard it was for CVC with those letters. I don't move on until she has 80% success rate (per the manual). Blends is something waaaaaay down the road. That was what we hit in AAR1 that made us come to a screeching halt.

 

I am so glad I am doing LiPS because it is really showing me that the breakdown is actually before the blends. So, now I know where we have more work to do. I don't think I need to worry about taking "advantage of my child", because she doesn't like much of any school. I have to work really hard to get her interested in anything school related, so I know not to push her - she wouldn't allow it anyway.:001_smile:

 

Thanks again.

[Lecka]

I didn't know it started with those consonants, but it makes sense, b/c I think those are the hardest ones. It really is hard when they are in the same word, and to hear the final sounds.

 

It sounds like you are doing really good!

 

My son could not isolate individual sounds (even in vc) for a long time, too, so if that is not a problem of course you don't need to spend ages on it.

 

I am with you, though! It is hard to see how hard it is for them to do these "easy" things.

Edited March 9, 2012 by Lecka

[momsuz123]

I didn't know it started with those consonants, but it makes sense, b/c I think those are the hardest ones. It really is hard when they are in the same word, and to hear the final sounds.

 

It sounds like you are doing really good!

 

My son could not isolate individual sounds (even in vc) for a long time, too, so if that is not a problem of course you don't need to spend ages on it.

 

I am with you, though! It is hard to see how hard it is for them to do these "easy" things.

 

 

Yes, I do think after re-reading what you suggested though, I went to fast. I don't think I will put brother consonants in the same word for awhile and see if that helps.

Thanks - I am always open for suggestions:)

[amo_mea_filiis.]

Can I buy this program?

 

I tried to google, but can only centers. This sounds like something that would benefit ds.