Discover Our Orton-Gillingham Multisensory Techniques for Reading & Spelling Tutoring

WHAT IS ORTON-GILLINGHAM PROGRAM?

The Orton-Gillingham program is designed as intense intervention for students who struggle to easily and accurately decode words when reading (despite being taught phonics), who by second grade are slow and inaccurate readers (are missing the oral reading fluency benchmarks), and who have always struggled with spelling – especially when writing sentences, stories, and compositions. Often, their struggles do not become apparent until first, second, or even third grade. 

WHAT ARE THE FEATURES OF ORTON-GILLINGHAM INSTRUCTION?

Explicit:  The rules and patterns of decoding and encoding are explicitly taught.  While traditional learners can pick up these rules and patterns naturally, students with dyslexia need to be taught every rule and pattern directly (or explicitly).  Students also need to be taught exceptions to the rules and patterns and be explicitly taught methods for learning non-phonetic words (15% of words in the English language do not follow the phonetic rules). 

Systematic & Structured:  Systematic instruction teaches new concepts in the exact same way every time.  This way the brain is not expending energy trying to figure out a new method, rather expects the routine of learning and can focus on the new concept being taught.  Structured instruction means that information is presented in an ordered way that shows the relationship between what was previously learned and the new material being taught. 

Sequential & Cumulative:  There should be specific steps and a clear plan to teach all the rules one at a time, building from the simple to the more complex.  One step builds from the previous step.  This is why it is extremely important to follow the program exactly as it is presented in the curriculum.

Multisensory:  As many of the senses as possible should be used at the same time in order to help the information to be stored in long term memory.

Individualized: A student should move through the program at a pace that allows the student to develop fluency and automaticity for each step of the program. Students only move from one step to the next as they build fluency for each level of language skills.

Diagnostic & Prescriptive:  Your tutor will monitor skill development with each step. The instructional practices are built upon what was observed in the previous lesson and what is judged to be necessary to move the student forward in the next lesson.

WHAT ARE THE EXPECTED RESULTS OF USING THE ORTON-GILLINGHAM PROGRAM?

Most families noticed an improvement in their child’s self-esteem within a few sessions.  Academic progress can usually be seen in the first month of tutoring. Plan to make a minimum of a 1 year commitment to your child’s tutoring.  If you choose to complete the entire program, it takes 2-3 years to complete.  Upon completion of the entire program, students can read on a 9th-11th grade reading level. 
Because most Dyslexic students have memory issues, a minimum of 2 sessions a week is recommended. 

DO YOU HAVE A GROUP READING AND/OR SPELLING CLASS OPTION?

We do not offer group classes for reading and spelling, students learn best one on one, when they are in a group setting, they have to wait for everyone to be present and everyone to understand the concept taught, so it is really slow and ineffective to teach this in a group setting.

DO YOU HAVE AN IN PERSON OPTION INSTEAD OF ONLINE?

Our program is 100% online now, we find that it is extremely effective for 95% of students. We can get a feel for how he performs online during the placement appointment.