The OrtonGillingham Approach

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The Orton-Gillingham Approach

• Trident Academy
• September 2006
• Sheila Costello FAOGPE

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The Orton-Gillingham Approach

• Named for
• Dr Samuel Torrey Orton
• Psychiatrist, Neurologist and
  Researcher
• Anna Gillingham
• Educator and Psychologist

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Orton-Gillingham

• An approach or philosophy
• NOT
• a Method

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Ortons researchwas in 3 main areas

• Studying the children-clinical observation
• Studying the physiology of the brain
• Devising remedial methods

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Dr Orton

• Laid emphasis on the biological basis of
  dyslexia- Realized that all aspects of language
  functions were involved- listening, speaking,
  reading and writing
• Believed that there was an educational treatment
• Used a VAKT -multisensory approach
• that built from the simplest to the more
  complex.

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Anna GillinghamBessie Stillman

• Developed an educational prescriptive to
  remediate dyslexic children

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The Orton-Gillingham Approach

• Direct and explicit
• Alphabetic/Phonetic
• Multisensory
• Structured Sequential
• Systematic
• Synthetic and Analytic

• Diagnostic and Prescriptive
• Cumulative,Spirals Back
• Cognitive
• Teaches to Automaticity
• Emotionally Sound

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Direct and Explicit

• Teach the language to the child as he/she is.
• Our children dont see patterns-need direct,
  explicit instruction.
• Children are only responsible for what is
  directly taught, no assumptions are made.

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Principles of Explicit Teaching

• Skill or strategy made clear
• Modeling
• Guided practice
• Corrective Feedback
• Independent Practice

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Principles of Explicit Teaching

• Skill or strategy made clear
• Modeling
• Guided practice
• Corrective Feedback
• Independent Practice

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Alphabetic and Phonetic

• symbol to sound
• a says /a/ as in apple
• and
• sound to symbol
• what says /a/?

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Multisensory

• All the senses are involved simultaneously so
  that all neural pathways are engaged
• Seeing
• Hearing
• Touching/feeling
• Doing
• VAKT

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Multisensory Teaching
Visual
Auditory
Kinesthetic / Tactile
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Structured and Sequential Systematic

• Build in logical order
• Smallest-largest
• Simple to complex
• Concrete to abstract
• Known to unknown

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Analytic and Synthetic

• Working with syllable division and
  identification.
• Morphemes- word parts, affixes and roots
• Building from the smallest unit -the phoneme to
  words and sentences

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Diagnostic and prescriptive

• Start with the child as he/she is.
• Lessons are diagnostic as the childs mistakes are
  analyzed.
• Lessons are prescriptive as the tutor designs the
  lesson for each child based on the previous
  lesson.
• Individualized

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Cumulative

• Continually spiraling back
• Repetitive

S K I L L S

Revisit previously learned skills
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Cognitive

• Teaches a reliable system
• Involves structural analysis
• Engages a thought process for reading and spelling

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Teach to Automaticity

• Goal is rapid, automatic, accurate decoding

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Emotionally Sound

• Feelings about ourselves affect the way we learn.
• Students have experienced failure with
  traditional methods.
• Building from what the student knows eliminates
  stress and encourages confidence

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An Orton-Gillingham Lesson

• I. Phonemic Awareness
• Ability to isolate, sequence and
  manipulate sounds in words.
• II Symbol Sound
• A. Phonograms
• B. Words to Read (in isolation)
• C. Oral Reading
• Accuracy
• Fluency
• Comprehension

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Lesson cont.

• III. Words to Spell. Sound symbol
• Spelling by sequencing sounds
• rip
• shed
• chest
• blame
• cobweb
• mistake
• Dictated, phonetically controlled sentences
• IV. Written Expression

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Orton-Gillingham

• Teaches to a sophisticated level of language.
• From phoneme to morpheme
• From simple to complex
• bat tenacious

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More Information

• Academy of Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and
  Educators ortonacademy.org
• International Dyslexia Association
• interdys.org