Why the Orton-Gillingham approach?
Teachers get into teaching because they want to help, but we often don’t have the training on how. When I first started, I found myself woefully unequipped to teach students with learning differences how to read.
One student in particular sticks with me. She’d been passed into my 7th grade class with a K-2 reading level, and she couldn’t complete the assignments, because she couldn’t even read them. I knew I needed to help her, but I didn’t know how, and this frustration on her part led to increasing behavioral issues. It all came to a head when I gave her an assignment she had no idea how to do, kicked over a chair, and said she wouldn’t do anything I said anymore. I felt like I lost her that day. She had been failed by the education system before she came to me, and I failed her, too.
And yet I also felt failed by my education. Despite my credentials, I had no training in how to teach basic reading skills, much less to those who struggle with the mainstream methods. So, I set out to get exactly that training I lacked.
I had to crowdfund in my community, and through my efforts, I was selected to by my county to learn the Orton-Gillingham approach. And now, I would like to spread what I’ve learned to teachers who felt like I did.
So, what makes the Orton-Gillingham approach so effective?
Diagnostic and Prescriptive
The first step of accommodating any learning difficulty is of course knowing where the difficulties lie.
You have to pinpoint the specific phonics skill the student struggles with. That is why I created materials for every individual skill. However, these are still not meant to be one-size-fits-all;
I still take the student’s psychological evaluation into my planning process and customize my exercises to support their weak points. For example, if a student has weak visual spatial processing, I will add extra space between words and enlarge the text. If a student has trouble with working memory, I use a concrete or visual support like a manipulative.
A manipulative is any concrete object used to represent a concept, such a colored tile for each sound in a word. That’s really general, so here’s just one example of how I use manipulatives in line with the Orton-Gillingham approach from my Instagram.
Explicit Instruction
It’s deceptively simple to say you need to make your assignments as clear as humanly possible, because teachers often go in blind to how many concepts we assume a student understands.
Make it too easy. Over explain. Get comfortable with truly only teaching one concept at a time. For example, I will isolate specific vowel teams in my material, and if there’s any possible ambiguity to the word I am looking for the student to complete, I add a picture. Use different example if possible.
Make it multi-sensory.
Our memory is directly linked to our senses, so the more senses incorporated, the better. This is all the more important for students who may have a weakness with one sense and need the information in another form to compensate. Have them say the sounds along with you and trace the words. Use varying colors. Get creative with it – or don’t! Sometimes simple is plenty.
One worksheet I use just looks like busywork coloring, but in actuality it’s getting students to trace the letter shapes slowly and mindfully.
Repeated Instruction
In the classroom, we teach one module and move on to the next, but it’s through repeated, continued review that information stays with us. Once a skill is learned, take some time to review it throughout the rest of the year even while you build off that progress with more skills.
But! We don’t want the students to get bored and stop paying attention, so keep the same skills while switching up the presentation. That’s another reason why my worksheets hold multiple activities for the same skill. Each packet comes with four different word sorts, coloring sheets, story passages, activities like word searches and fill in the blanks, and a printable set of flash cards.
I don’t have to tell you that we are currently going through a literacy crisis. With the pause of covid, even students without dyslexia are far behind, and we have to meet them where they are, just as we always did. But if you too feel like you don’t know how to do that, then get everything I’ve learned easily without the crisis.
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