Orton-Gillingham Reading Method
The Orton-Gillingham reading method is an approach to teaching language to students with dyslexia or dyslexia-related disorders. The principles of the teaching approach were developed by Dr. Samuel Torrey Orton while working with students in a mobile teaching unit in Iowa during the 1920s. Orton collaborated with one of his students, Anna Gillingham, at Columbia University's Teacher's College, to write the Orton-Gillingham reading method tome, "Remedial Training for Children with Specific Disability in Reading, Spelling and Penmanship," published in 1935. Their system has gone on to influence many other teaching methods.
Other People Are Reading
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Content
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Instruction in the Orton-Gillingham reading method begins with the most basic components of language: phonemes and graphemes. Phonemes are the simplest sounds (e.g., the sound "p") we make, and graphemes are their written symbols (e.g., the written "p"). Once these units are established, their correspondence is addressed. Next come syllables and their rules. There are many ways to write the same sounds. Students learn the variations and probabilities involved in representing each verbal sound. For instance, the sound "new" is spelled "pneu" in "pneumatic." Finally, the Latin roots of the language are taught.
Multisensory
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Studies show that students with dyslexia and related disorders retain more knowledge with a multisensory approach. Orton began using a multisensory approach while teaching learning-disabled students in Iowa. The Orton-Gillingham reading method uses visual, auditory and kinesthetic lessons to create as many mental cues as possible for each phoneme and grapheme. For example, students might utter "ch" while viewing the same letters on a chalkboard and tracing the letters in the air, modeling the letters in clay or drawing them in sand. Orton-Gillingham practitioners believe this approach reduces students' likelihood of reversing or confusing letters in type.
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Systematic and Cumulative
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The Orton-Gillingham curriculum builds on itself. A student cannot grasp words before syllables or syllables before phonemes and graphemes. Practitioners of Orton-Gillingham must adapt to their students' pace. Their focus is to attain complete comprehension before moving forward. Whereas in a classroom a teacher must follow a curriculum and a timeline, an Orton-Gillingham teacher will not advance to a new theme until students show that they have fully learned the prior lesson. This is possible because the Orton-Gillingham reading method is most often taught one-on-one.
Decoding
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Dyslexic students experience difficulty reading and writing. However, the Orton-Gillingham reading method is just that: a reading method. Language education experts refer to "decoding" and "encoding." Reading is a task of decoding: extracting meaning from symbols on a page. Writing is a matter of encoding: communicating meaning by creating symbols on a page. It is possible that teaching students to read will improve their ability to write, but Orton-Gillingham professes to be a method of teaching decoding only.
Diagnostic
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Orton-Gillingham reading method teachers employ regular testing to ensure that students do not fall behind in comprehension. Before advancing to a new stage of instruction, an Orton-Gillingham teacher uses diagnostics to confirm that the student possesses the skills taught in all prior lessons. During a later lesson, if a student demonstrates difficulty with something from a prior lesson, the teacher will immediately return to the prior lesson to reestablish full comprehension. Again, this approach is made possible because most Orton-Gillingham students are taught one-on-one.
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