Aug 173 min read

What is Structured Literacy?

Orton-Gillingham tutor and special eduction teacher.

Have you heard the words “structured literacy,” a lot by now, but you don’t want to admit you are not really sure what that means?

There is a lot of educational jargon out there. It can be confusing to keep up with what seems like new approaches and curriculum every year. Structured literacy is actually not a “new” approach, but it has gotten more attention in the last few years. This is for many reasons, including a rise in awareness and legislation around dyslexia, as well as a backlash against balanced literacy and some well known curriculums.

But the truth is, structured literacy has been a long proven approach to literacy. It can be a helpful approach for any beginning reader, but is especially necessary for students with dyslexia.

Structured Literacy Characteristics:

Structured literacy covers many literacy concepts including: phonics, morphology, reading fluency, vocabulary, reading comprehension, spelling, and writing. The structured literacy is characterized by two important facets:

It is explicit.

This means that a structured literacy approach takes time to clearly and repeatedly teach reading and writing concepts in a super clear way. There is no room for confusion.

For example- when I introduce vowel sounds I differentiate them from consonants by highlighting how something is typically blocking our air flow when we make consonant sounds. Sometimes it is our lips (like the letter p), or our tongue (like the letter l), or our throat (like the letter r). This is not the case with vowels. I also make sure students can distinguish individual vowel sounds.

Structured literacy explicitly teaches vowel sounds.

It is systematic

To me, this refers to two different things. Structured literacy is systematic with the sequence that skills are introduced. The most basic skills including letter names and sounds are taught first, and more complex skills are layered on gradually.

Structured literacy is also systematic in that whenever possible- individual student data is used to drive instruction. That means, when I am using the Orton-Gillingham approach with a student, I am going to choose concepts and lessons I know that specific student needs more practice on based on data. This data can come from diagnostic assessments like the CORE phonics assessment, or the CTOPP.

Structured Literacy in the Classroom

When tutoring 1:1, I look at the individual student’s literacy data and evaluation to guide instruction. However, when I was an elementary and middle school reading specialist, I had to be able to meet multiple students' needs in the same class.

At times I used structured literacy programs like those based on the Orton-Gillingham approach. However, I often relied on station teaching in my reading intervention classes. I would split the class into groups of students with similar needs, and then they would rotate through multiple stations.

Usually these included a teacher station with me, and explicit instruction on new concepts.I definitely tried to make this station engaging and fun. Even simple board games with flashcards were often a hit.

Structured literacy games can be engaging and fun.

Another station was usually a no prep worksheet meant to practice a skill that had already been introduced. I needed this station to be super simple to use, easily differentiated, and with a lot of engaging practice on the same skill. And to make matters more complicated- the worksheets had to be designed to teach basic reading concepts to students who were developmentally older than most beginning readers.

As you can imagine- that was not an easy task. Most of the time, I resorted to making my own worksheets. I found using the same type of worksheets made class predictable and allowed students to get the independent practice they needed to reinforce phonics and spelling concepts.