Customer Reviews

Seeing Stars: Symbol Imagery for Phonemic Awareness, Sight Words and Spelling

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For the reviewer who found it inflexible perhaps you were not flexible enough to do the program. I was skeptical myself and heard the same argument about it but my son who is gifted with a dyslexia/dysgraphia
was offered accommodations for his spelling and writing problems at school after we had him tested privately. I was told by the school spelling could not be taught, I considered one hour a week with a tutor and then we decided on the Seeing Stars at Lindamood Bell. We took him two hours a day five days a week for 120 hours of instruction. My 10 year old now is able to do work he would not do before the program. He got star student for the first time. He can see a word looks wrong and is spelling more automatically. It is amazing after all the years he has struggled. He was shy in kindergarten, got sad in first and by the end of second became more annoyed and angry. By the end of third he was at times oppositional and fourth grade began horribly. He NOW is a different child. He is happy and more flexible. Things we thought were clinical have changed now that he can do the school work. I will say we did the program there at the center and it more really was worth it. I want to buy the kit for my daughter who has no learning disability but think she could benefit from the teaching method. I feel when nobody else could help they saved him. It is an expensive program but so were all the alternatives and doing nothing was not going to work.

This book is a keystone work for anyone who works with children who struggle with basic reading skills. There is a LOT of memorization involved with the list of sight words. However, there are a great number of other important reading tools. Further, Nanci Bell is a recognized expert in visual imagery and the importance of this skill to reading. If your child (or student) does not seem to get the concept of letters, this book is a must.

I have only been using this program for a month or two, but I am astounded at what my students can do with it. I have the entire kit (not just the book) and find it very effective.

I am a home-schooling parent, and also studying for my b.a. in Special Education. This book is a very useful resource, and it is especially useful because you don't have to alter your phonics program in any way, you just supplement it with the strategies listed in this book. A very comprehensive and easy to understand strategy that both the educator and parent can implement. Even five stars does not do it justice in my opinion. Just been using it two days, and my daughter is already improving on her spelling. Just remember to buy the index cards to do your phonetic chains on before starting the lessons.

Some children don't have strong "pictures" of letters and words in their mind. We need them when we read. This book teaches you how to build these "pictures" in a logical step by step easy to read book. The program has been around twenty years and proven.

I purchased the entire Seeing Stars Kit when an educational psychologist recommended I use it to work with one of her clients. The program is packaged with lots of goodies. However, I found it completely inflexible. I am used to customizing materials to use with individual students who have very individual needs. This kit was more "one size fits all" and was a complete waste of my money.