The LiPS® Program
The LiPS® Program focuses on explicitly targeting weaknesses in phonemic awareness—the ability to identify the order, number and sequence of sounds within words—that may cause an individual to struggle to learn phonics. Instruction begins by exploring the relationship between the way the mouth looks and feels while producing sounds and builds into word attack, sight words, and fluency with oral motor feedback as the foundational sensory component.
What is Phonemic Awareness?
The Foundation of Phonics
Understanding the skills needed to learn is crucial for preparing a student to be independent and successful. Often students who struggle to connect letters and sounds or memorize sight words are just given more repetition to solve their challenges. Weaknesses in phonemic awareness—the ability to identify the order, number and sequence of sounds within words— may cause an individual to struggle with phonics. Instruction begins by exploring the relationship between the way the mouth looks and feels while producing sounds and builds into word attack, sight words, and fluency with oral motor feedback as the foundational sensory component.
Without this foundational component, one of the five essential skills for reading, students are unable to correctly decode words and natural reading cannot begin. This essential skill can be both measured and remediated in students, especially those diagnosed with challenges like Dyslexia, ADHD and Auditory Processing Disorders.
Is this program right for my child?
Common Challenges:
Students are introduced to sounds as “brother pairs” by discovering how their mouth feels and looks when the sounds are produced. Vowels are introduced in families and students learn to remember how sounds look and feel to give them additional multi-sensory avenues to retain phonemes.
Our instruction uses a systematic, multi-sensory approach to apply phonemic awareness to develop exceptional phonics that will unlock the code for students. We teach the most common patterns and rules to allow students to quickly and easily attack new words. Students learn to feel and see the sounds within words and have additional avenues of sensory feedback to ground their knowledge for automatic decoding.
As students develop stronger phonemic awareness, they soon become ready to incorporate it’s silent partner, Symbol Imagery. With a strong phonics foundation in place we begin strengthening their working memory for letters and sounds. For some students they can practice flashcards all day, but the words just never stick. Our instruction focuses on teaching children how to learn and then fills in the gaps using their newfound skills. We close gaps quickly by concentrating on efficiency and prioritizing the highest frequency words.
Fluent reading is the biggest challenge for most students. By focusing first on creating a stable foundation, we introduce them to content they are able to tackle with interest levels that don’t leave them feeling bored. We integrate phonics, sight words and vocabulary to give students all the tools needed to transfer isolated skills to the page with ease. Frequent checks for comprehension are included in all reading fluency instruction.
We build both phonetic and visual spelling throughout the LiPS program. Students have been learning the skills to feel phonetic patterns, lock in visual patterns in words, and hold full words in their minds eye. Now comes the time for them to integrate all these skills together for better spelling and writing. We create custom spelling inventories for each student, aligned with their curriculum at school. With strong phonemic awareness, students have the ability to learn and retain new words with less effort and greater independence.
How Do We Receive Instruction?
Our team of specialists are committed to identifying areas that could potentially inhibit your child’s successful learning and processing growth. Our approach at Eardley Education is focused on identifying these learning differences and building custom learning programs for your child’s remediation from processing skills to practical application in the classroom.
- Learning programs that fit your schedule
- 1:1 teaching sessions with learning coaches
- All learning coaches are highly trained in multiple methodologies and hold Certification in K-12 Exceptional Student Education
- Always a positive learning environment to build confidence and self esteem
At Home
We pride ourselves on creating success for your child’s growth in a convenient environment. We offer all our learning programs with learning coaches at your home.
At Your School
Sometimes life is busy, we offer all of our programs at many schools in South Florida and always expanding. Working at your child’s school allows us to be hands on with teachers to deliver truly tailored instruction that complements their school curriculum.
Virtual Instruction
We offer many of our programs online in a safe, secure online & interactive video conference. This is a favorite for many busy families, if travel distance to us is inconvenient or you would like to observe the session. It is particularly popular for students out of state or who reside internationally
Summer & Winter
Use a school break to turn weeks into years of progress! Our intensive sessions each summer and winter allow students all over South Florida to bridge gaps quickly and get back to school on the right path.
International Students
If you are not in the United States, that is okay! We offer international students Online Distance Learning (online interactive video conferences) or if visiting during the holidays you can join our Intensive Summer or Winter programs.
Educator Professional Development
If you are a teacher, administrator or other educational professional looking to learn our approach to help your students or improve your school’s ability to better service children with learning challenges – contact us today.