The Orton-Gillingham Approach
What is This Approach?
The Orton-Gillingham is an approach to multisensory reading to aid all students, specifically those who struggle with reading, writing, and spelling.
Where Does This Title Come From?
- Samuel T. Orton was a physician that studied on learning disabilities. Orton is well-known for his work on investigating the causes of dyslexia and the methods of treatment for it. He introduced the idea of multisensory instruction, enhancing both the right brain and the left brain functions.
- Anna Gillingham was a psychologist who publicized materials for instruction on teaching skills and strategies for breaking down and translating the English alphabet and its phonemes.
- Together, these two combined their studies to form the Orton-Gillingham approach to instruction and learning.
Why Implement the Orton-Gillingham Approach in the Classroom?
- This approach started out as the signature/main approach for disabilities in reading, but now it is viewed as a learning and instructional tool for all students. ELL students even benefit from this method.
- Reading is a necessary skill to not only master success in school, but in life as well. Almost everything we do requires us to read to some degree
- If students can read, they will be more successful in all content areas.
- This approach has been proven to allow teachers to assess their students more quickly. Teachers can pick out the strugglers easily.
- It is an engaging learning process for all students.
- It encourages teachers to learn their students' learning styles.
- The OG approach allows for differentiation in the classroom.
- It has been proven to have positive effects on student-learning outcomes.
Orton-Gillingham Activities:
- Writing in sand, shaving cream, or rice bins
- Writing in the air, whether it is writing a single letter or a whole word
- Feeling and tracing letters on sandpaper
- Building words with magnet or foam letters
- Reading words, building the words, and then writing the words
- Tapping out sounds in words
- Using story sticks
- Highlighting parts of words
- Touching and saying words or letters in reading
- Using manipulatives during instruction
I typed "Orton-Gillingham" on Pinterest and it pulled up hundreds of ideas on how to use it in the classroom...HOW CONVENIENT!
Reflection:
Before watching this presentation, I had never heard of the Orton-Gillingham approach! I find it very interesting and something I would love to look into more. In my ECE block practicum experience, I made a sight word sensory bin with magnetic letters and sight word cards that allowed children to find letters in the rice to spell out their sight words. My CT used that bin throughout my time there and it seemed very effective. Not only were the students learning to read, identify, and spell out their sight words, they were also having fun in the process. I believe multisensory learning approaches are very engaging for the students. In my future classroom, I plan on learning my students' various learning styles to provide multisensory approaches to learning that fit the needs of my students.
All pictures are from Google and Pinterest!
No comments:
Post a Comment