Lindamood-Bell School House for course credit and homework support.

Lindamood-Bell now offers significantly discounted instructional options that will allow students to receive school credit while attending a Lindamood-Bell Learning Center.

Instructional options for the Lindamood-Bell School House include limited support for more independent learners, increased support for those working towards independent learning, and full support for those needing more direct Lindamood-Bell Sensory-Cognitive instruction. Each of these options can qualify for curriculum and credit through virtual school or your homeschool selections. And, with the Lindamood-Bell School House, savings range from 30% to 72%.

Turnaround School in Colorado Outperforms the State with Lindamood-Bell

As a result of its School Turnaround efforts, Haskin Elementary School’s 3^rd Graders have outperformed the state average on the 2012 TCAP in reading. In 2011, 41 percent of Haskin’s 3^rd graders scored as proficient or advanced. This year, 76 percent of 3^rd graders scored at proficient or advanced, whereas, the state average was 74 percent.

Haskin Elementary is in Center School District, located in the rural San Luis Valley of southwestern Colorado. According to the Colorado Department of Education, the district has one of the highest percentage of students in poverty in the state (94%) and is 94 percent minority.  The district also classifies 65 percent of students as English Learners. In 2010, the school partnered with Lindamood-Bell to implement a comprehensive Professional Learning Community (PLC) based on literacy development.

Despite the many challenges facing its population, Haskin Elementary School has demonstrated that with an effective Turnaround plan, low-performing schools can significantly increase student achievement. Following the first year of its Turnaround model with Lindamood-Bell, the percent of 3^rd graders at proficiency in reading increased from 28 percent to 41 percent.

After the second year, 3^rd graders have increased from 41% to 76% proficient/advanced. In two years, Haskin’s 3^rd graders have made a 48-point improvement, the largest of any school involved in the School Improvement program in the state.

Principal Kathy Kulp observed, “Lindamood-Bell has had an enormous impact on our school and on our students. The training our teachers received impacted all areas of their instruction and led to increased student achievement across the content areas.”

All instructional staff, including the school principal and Director of Instruction for the district, received Lindamood-Bell^® professional development in programs that develop reading and comprehension. Lindamood-Bell’s sensory cognitive programs are integrated throughout the school’s curricula and Response to Intervention (RtI) framework.

Lindamood-Bell’s professional development model includes job-embedded support for all teachers. District Superintendent George Welsh noted that “having somebody who is here, living in the community, spending the extra hours with you, who you can go to for an immediate answer, who, when you have a teacher struggling can go to support them, that’s an outstanding model.”

Haskin is now focusing on sustaining their success. Several instructional leaders in the school have completed the Lindamood-Bell^® Certification program, aimed at increasing teacher effectiveness and maintaining program fidelity. One of those instructional leaders, Melissa Garcia, is confident about reaching every student in the building: “I truly believe that choosing to implement Lindamood-Bell at Haskin Elementary was a great decision. Our students are being challenged more than ever before and our teachers have the tools, the metacognitive strategies, and support to reach them.”

World-renowned Researcher to Study How Reading Instruction Affects Children’s Brains

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have initiated a study designed to explore the predictive value of neuroimaging for reading intervention with early elementary students. Principal Investigator Dr. John Gabrieli is the director of the Athinoula A. Martinos Imaging Center at the McGovern Institute in addition to holding a faculty appointment at MIT. Dr. Gabrieli says of the study, “This is an exciting opportunity to deliver intensive reading instruction to children at the young ages when such instruction is thought to be most beneficial, and to use the neuroimaging to better understand which children most benefit from this instruction.”

The Summer Time Adventures in Reading and Teaching project will include selection of beginning readers at-risk for reading difficulties. The students will receive six weeks of intensive instruction using the Seeing Stars® program to improve their reading skills. Seeing Stars is designed to stimulate symbol imagery and to develop reading skills including phonemic awareness, word recognition, and fluency.

Participating students will receive fMRI brain scans to measure brain activity, in addition to completing standardized measures of reading, before and after instruction. The intervention will be provided by Lindamood-Bell® staff and will be closely monitored by MIT investigators.

Investigations using brain scans and their relation to reading will potentially help to predict which students may develop reading difficulties and which interventions can help develop and increase brain function and reading performance.

For more information on joining the study, please contact: thestartstudy@gmail.com
Dr. Joanna Christodoulou, Study Director @ 617.324.2175
Abbie Cyr, Program Coordinator @ 617.324.7196

For Lindamood-Bell:
Paul Worthington @ 805-541-3836

Learning Center Instruction for Reading and Comprehension

Many children and adults struggle with problems related to reading, spelling, and language comprehension.  Factor in diagnoses like dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, auditory processing disorder, hyperlexia, and autism, and it can be difficult to know where to turn for the right educational assistance. 

With over 25 years of experience, the internationally renowned organization Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes offers solutions for many learning difficulties.  Lindamood-Bell’s research-validated instruction is based on a theory of cognition that can address the global learning needs of all individuals.

Lindamood-Bell^® instruction develops and strengthens the sensory-cognitive functions of phonemic awareness, symbol imagery and concept imagery.  A weakness in one of these functions can cause reading, spelling, and comprehension difficulties, and will interfere with a student’s ability to learn. 

“Our unique instruction and one-to-one setting allows for great growth, and this environment also nurtures each student’s self-esteem and confidence,” explains Kindle Smyth, Regional Director of Centers.  “It is our goal that all of our students become independent, self-correcting learners in all aspects of their lives.”

In order to provide the appropriate instruction for each individual, a learning profile must be established – this is accomplished with a comprehensive battery of assessments.  This learning evaluation is analyzed and a consultation is then held to explain the individual’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as a plan for instruction.  Each instructional plan is tailored to the specific learning needs of the individual and embodies an interactive, balanced approach.

The intensity of instruction is another notable difference between Lindamood-Bell and other tutoring services that provide learning assistance. Lindamood-Bell recommends intensive instruction, which consists of approximately two to four hours per day, five days per week.  “Our average results with intensive instruction may see two to three years’ growth in as little as six to eight weeks,” Smyth says. 

The majority of Lindamood-Bell’s students are between the ages of 7-14, but because their unique instructional program is not age, year, or performance specific, they see students of all levels and ages, including adults.

You can find more information about Lindamood Bell Learning Processes online at www.lindamoodbell.com.

New Hope for Promising and Lasting Results in Reading Improvement

Researchers and scientists know that improving reading is an important priority for educators as well as families.

An article that appeared in the journal NeuroImage in August of 2011 features the results of a study that examined changes in reading skills and gray matter volume (GMV) in children with dyslexia who received intensive reading instruction in a program that develops literacy skills. The study is encouraging and exciting for those individuals who struggle on a daily basis with reading, spelling, and language comprehension difficulties.

The independent study, conducted by researchers from the Center for the Study of Learning, Georgetown University Medical Center, and Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, showed three important results. First, training-induced changes in GMV were observed. In addition, reading improvements induced by instruction accompanied the GMV changes. Finally, and especially important, both the GMV and reading skill changes were maintained after the instruction ended.

The intervention used in the study included visual imagery of words, multisensory integration, and development of the sound representation of words. Behavioral tests and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans were performed before the intervention, after the intervention, and after a period of time where no intervention was administered. 

Reading behaviors significantly improved, and for the first time, the results of the study indicate that GMV increases in the left anterior fusiform gyrus/hippocampus, left precuneus, right hippocampus, and right anterior cerebellum occur as well. These are areas of the brain that have been shown previously to play a part in learning and visual imagery.

“For many years we have noted significant improvement in decoding and reading comprehension when we focus instruction on mental imagery as applied to language and literacy skills,” says Nanci Bell, Director of Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes. “The results of this MRI study not only validate that instruction in imagery results in improved reading behaviors, but also results in important and lasting changes in the brain.

“This is a very important finding in the field of reading research, especially as related to changing the profiles of children who have decoding difficulties.”

The results of this study, together with current understanding of brain-behavioral relationships, will help inform both educators and researchers in an effort to better understand the neural basis for successful reading intervention. This can lead to the development of  more reading programs that will best help children who have trouble reading.

The findings provide encouragement that learning can result in both lasting behavioral and structural changes in children who struggle in learning to read. It is a significant piece in understanding how the brain responds to learning and in working to translate these findings into refining interventions and improving the learning experience for all.

Written by Anne Fenske, Center Director for Lindamood-Bell in Denver, CO
As published on OurColoradoEducation.com

Announcing our 50th Learning Center!

I am very pleased to announce the opening of our 50th Lindamood-Bell Learning Center—Bronxville, New York! This was formerly a Seasonal Intensive Learning Center (SILC) that will now be open all year as a satellite out of our New York City Learning Center.

We hope to open an additional 40 SILCs this summer! It is exciting to bring the “Magic of Lindamood-Bell” to so many children and adults around the world.

Lucky us. Nanci

Join us for a Spring Open House

Join us for a Spring Open House!

During the months of March and April, our Learning Centers will be hosting open houses.

Be our guest and learn about our programs for reading, comprehension, and math. We will have presentations, refreshments, and a chance to observe students in session.

Details and RSVP through your local Learning Center.