Overview

Program Description¹

The Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing^® (LiPS^®) program (formerly called the Auditory Discrimination in Depth^® [ADD] program) is designed to teach students the skills they need to decode words and to identify individual sounds and blends in words. Initial activities engage students in discovering the lip, tongue, and mouth actions needed to produce specific sounds. After students are able to produce, label, and organize the sounds with their mouths, subsequent activities in sequencing, reading, and spelling use the oral aspects of sounds to identify and order them within words. The program also offers direct instruction in letter patterns, sight words, and context clues in reading. LiPS^® is designed for emergent readers in kindergarten through grade 3 or for struggling, dyslexic readers. The program is individualized to meet students’ needs and is often used with students who have learning disabilities or difficulties. The version of the program tested here involved computer-supported activities.

Research²

One study of LiPS^® that falls within the scope of the Students with Learning Disabilities review protocol meets What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards. The study included 50 students with learning disabilities from eight to ten years of age in three elementary schools in Florida.³

Based on this study, the WWC considers the extent of evidence for LiPS^® on students with learning disabilities to be small for alphabetics, reading fluency, reading comprehension, writing, and math. No studies that meet WWC evidence standards with or without reservations examined the effectiveness of LiPS^® on students with learning disabilities in the general reading achievement, science, social studies, or progressing in school domains.

Effectiveness

LiPS^® was found to have potentially positive effects on alphabetics, reading fluency, and math, no discernible effects on reading comprehension, and potentially negative effects on writing for students with learning disabilities.

	Alphabetics	Reading fluency	Reading comprehension	Writing	Math
Rating of effectiveness	Potentially positive effects	Potentially positive effects	No discernible effects	Potentially negative effects	Potentially positive effects
Improvement index4	Average: +9 percentile points Range: –4 to +34 percentile points	Average: +17 percentile points na	Average: +8 percentile points Range: –5 to +21 percentile points	Average: –22 percentile points na	Average: +12 percentile points na
na = not applicable