Considering Lindamood-Bell®-Style, Intensive Tutoring Program? Everything You Need to Know. (Online, in Maine, or in New England)

If you've been researching intensive reading programs for your child, there's a good chance Lindamood-Bell® has come up. It's well-known, the methods are evidence-based, and for a lot of families, it feels like the answer they've been looking for.

And then you find out what it costs.

We're not going to pretend the sticker shock isn't real. Intensive programs at Lindamood-Bell® can run $25,000–$38,000 for a full summer of intervention, often with a commitment upfront before you've even had a chance to see how your child responds. For many families it is just too much.

The curriculum is great, but the price tag, and used car sales vibe can be... a lot.

What Makes Lindamood-Bell® Work, and Who Can Deliver It

Lindamood-Bell® tutoring isn't magic. It's a set of well-researched, structured literacy curricula — LiPS® for phonological processing, Seeing Stars® for symbol imagery ™ (or orthographic processing to the rest of the reading world), or Visualizing and Verbalizing® for language comprehension. These are teachable, trainable methods. Tutors and reading specialists across the country learn them, use them, and deliver results with them.

At Pine State Learning, we know these programs backwards, forwards, and upside down, plus many other structured literacy methods. More importantly, we know how to structure intensive intervention, where students work with up to six tutors per day, to achieve crazy progress in a short time.

We use the Lindamood-Bell® programs because they work. But we also know they're one part of a bigger picture, not the only path forward for every child. We start with good assessment and file review and use that information to design the ideal program for your learner. Not limited by any brand.

The Problem with "Hard Sell Programs"

One thing parents tell us after going through the Lindamood-Bell® intake process is that it can feel like a sales experience. There's an assessment, but it often comes with a recommendation for a very large block of hours (purchased upfront) before you've seen whether the approach is even the right fit for your kid. For some families, it is really off putting. Working there, it felt equally off putting! When we started Pine State, we knew that we could get kids what they need without feeling like a used car salespeople.

Our Differences

What we do differently: Our programs are designed by teachers and tutors who have worked at those big corporate centers, but also have training and certifications in a wide range of other curricula: EBLI, Orton-Gillingham, Wilson, and Morningside. We spend time reviewing your child's previous evaluations, figure out what has been preventing their success (the specific cognitive or academic gap that's making reading hard) and build an instructional plan just for them.

Some learners need 30 hours, some learners need 120, some learners need 200-300 hours. We let you know what we recommend, then let you figure out what type of schedule you can manage. We don't inflate hours and we do not make you commit to more hours than you are comfortable with!

We are teaching nerds at heart, and we run our center. We are not a giant corporate conglomerate and a summer program is not a Honda Civic. Our tutors are educators, with a license and a passion for kids, not business.

An Option in Maine and Online

For families in who live or summer in Maine, getting intensive services often means traveling to a metropolitan area, staying somewhere, and disrupting the entire family's life for months.

Pine State Learning is here in Maine. We work in Brunswick and Portland, and we also offer live, one-on-one sessions online for families anywhere in the country. You get the same research-based instruction but get to enjoy summer in Maine at the same time.

We work with kids who have dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia, particularly the ones who are bright and capable but haven't made real progress with the support they've gotten so far.

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Additional Resources:

Lindamood-Bell® and Orton-Gillingham - Considering Lindamood-Bell in Maine? What Families Should Know About Cost and Access 

Pine State Learning is NOT Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes nor is it affiliated with, certified, endorsed, licensed, monitored or sponsored by Lindamood-Bell, Nanci Bell, Phyllis Lindamood or Pat Lindamood. Lindamood-Bell in no way endorses or monitors the services provided by Pine State Learning.