Orton-Gillingham is a structured, multisensory approach to literacy instruction. It provides the foundation for teaching students with dyslexia how to read and write. And it works because it targets areas of difficulty for people with dyslexia.
Orton-Gillingham teachers are trained to recognize and respond to student misconceptions about letters, sounds, spelling rules, word structure, and spelling patterns.
What Is Orton-Gillingham?
The Orton-Gillingham training method is a structured, multisensory, explicit approach to literacy instruction. Stretching back over 100 years, this approach was developed by a team of educators who viewed reading and writing as an active process that should be taught through what is now known as “learning sequences.”
Learning sequences are based on the understanding that there are specific steps children must go through to learn new skills or concepts. And in the case of learning how to read and write, these steps include:
- Identifying sounds
- Blending sounds into words
- Reading words silently
So, Orton-Gillingham training enables teachers to use a combination of phonics instruction, spelling lessons, and handwriting practice to ensure that students master each step.
Used by Volunteers and Professionals
Orton-Gillingham is a structured, multisensory approach to literacy instruction. It is used by volunteers and professionals in classrooms and homes, parents and teachers, tutors, and therapists. Meanwhile, children who were not doing well at school were viewed differently from those who had learning difficulties relating to reading or writing skills, even though both types of problems may have been caused by dyslexia! Besides, there are many different types of dyslexia, but they all relate to difficulties processing information through your senses (audio/visual). So, the Orton-Gillingham approach helps children with these problems by using multisensory techniques such as visual aids like charts or diagrams and auditory stimulation such as tapes or CDs so that they can learn through all five senses rather than just one sense alone!
Structured, Multisensory, Explicit Approach to Literacy Instruction
Orton-Gillingham is teacher-directed and has a defined set of levels that students work through. There are also different teaching methods for each level: direct, explicit, analytic, and synthetic approaches. The most common method used in Orton-Gillingham training is the direct method, which involves using whole word flash cards or activities with corresponding written responses that students can learn by rote. This is usually combined with other teaching methods such as auditory (listening) experiences and visual representations like pictures or diagrams.
The Method Works Because It Targets Areas of Difficulty for People with Dyslexia
The method targets areas of difficulty for people with dyslexia to help them learn how to read and spell. And this is done by teaching new skills one at a time for each letter sound or phoneme (the smallest unit of speech).
The Orton-Gillingham Approach works because it teaches students how to recognize letters by using the most common letter patterns (those that they will encounter most often) rather than learning the names of individual letters. Students are also taught how to blend sounds into words through sight word vocabulary practice and spelling exercises using high-frequency words in sentence context. And by doing this, students learn decoding skills and reading comprehension strategies early on so they can become independent readers faster than they would if they were only taught decoding strategies without being given more complex reading material first.
Orton-Gillingham teachers are trained to recognize and respond to student misconceptions about letters, sounds, spelling rules, and word structure. It is also an effective method for teaching dyslexics how to read and write.