Ariston Posted October 10, 2012 Share Posted October 10, 2012 My 8 y.o. son is in the process of being diagnosed with dyslexia. We have been waiting for his reading to take off for a while, but now we are at the point where we want to remediate him with something that will definitely work...we are tired of trying things that help a little but never get us to the point where he is a 'reader.' He was making progress with Phonics Pathways but now it has started to wane and the rules are not laid out orderly enough for him. His decoding is very decent (as long as its a word he's been taught how to decode) but he has very little fluency. He sounds out everything...even if it is a story that has the same word over and over again...he will keep sounding it out as though he's never seen it before. However, words that he has learned as sight words, he recognizes very quickly. I saw good progress with using timed reading and repeat reading, but I don't have enough knowledge to just plan these things on my own and need a program with more hand holding incremental steps toward success. I was looking at Seeing Stars and it looks like its geared toward increasing fluency and might be good for him, but I honestly cannot tell from the website what the program is like and what the starting and ending point for a student is. Is it a 'teaching reading' program? Would it take a child from not reading to readingm, or is it just to remediate students? Is it a stand alone program, or meant to be used with other programs? We also have been looking at Barton because my husband and I want something that is guaranteed to work and will get the job done. We are eager to fix this now rather than wait longer, even if it takes time and money. Do Seeing Stars and Barton overlap? Is it pointless to use both? If we did Seeing Stars is it possible that we would not need to use Barton at all and it could remediate him by itself? I'm sorry for all the questions but I honestly cannot tell what the Seeing Stars program is like...the website has way too much education-ese for me. Feel free to just pick one of the above questions to answer :) Elena Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MyLittleBears Posted October 10, 2012 Share Posted October 10, 2012 (edited) From my understanding, Barton recommends LIPS if your dc does not pass the Barton screening. Your ds sounds like my 9yr old. He was reading but not fluently and still making many, many mistakes. I too was looking into Barton until someone here recommended Abecedarian. It teaches reading without tying in any rules. Michael Bend, the author, is trained in the Lindamood Bell technique. We tried the free Level A blending/segmenting supplement first (we used some magnetic letter tiles). His his fluency literally took off in a matter of 3weeks and this is after trying multiple things over a couple of years. It was all he needed and very simple. I also tried it with my little guy and we had the exact same result. I was sold and the price was right, so we ordered level B, and now they are both reading Frog and Toad! This would have been a dream about a month ago. It has done tremendous things for their confidence! You can try the supplement for free: http://www.abcdrp.com/supplements.asp Edited October 10, 2012 by MyLittleBears Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merry gardens Posted October 10, 2012 Share Posted October 10, 2012 Seeing Stars is one of the three reading programs developed by Lindamood-Bell. It is significantly different from Barton, but there is some overlap. The early stages of Barton overlaps much more with Lindamood-Bell's LiPS program, although LiPS contains information that Barton doesn't. I suggest you give your child the Barton screen. Susan Barton referred us over to LiPS when my ds couldn't pass one portion of that screen. Then we moved onto Barton, but because I like the Lindamood Bells materials, I also supplemented with some materials from Seeing Stars. Seeing Stars works to develop visual memory for symbols & words and to help build fluency. But as the good people at LMB know, there are other reasons why children struggle with reading--which is why they have two other reading programs. I like Seeing Stars, but if you are looking for a "stand alone" program, based on my experience, I'd suggest Barton. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ariston Posted October 17, 2012 Author Share Posted October 17, 2012 We tried the free Level A blending/segmenting supplement first (we used some magnetic letter tiles). His his fluency literally took off in a matter of 3weeks and this is after trying multiple things over a couple of years. It was all he needed and very simple. Thank you, I will start with that and see how it goes! Seeing Stars is one of the three reading programs developed by Lindamood-Bell. It is significantly different from Barton, but there is some overlap. The early stages of Barton overlaps much more with Lindamood-Bell's LiPS program, although LiPS contains information that Barton doesn't. I suggest you give your child the Barton screen. My son did pass the Barton screening. Does seeing stars teach phonics rules, or does it assume the student has phonics? Also does Barton improve fluency/speed? He learns phonics rules fairly easily but he t-r-u-d-g-e-s through reading slowly, and is exhausted after reading short passages. I was a little worried that Barton would just be teaching more rules but that he would still not improve on fluency. (though that is obviously not the experience others have had with the program, so it is probably a baseless worry.) Elena Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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