The Orton-Gillingham Approach:
How we apply the science of reading by using multi-sensory techniques to teach literacy
What is Orton-Gillingham?
Orton-Gillingham is an evidence-based, multi-sensory, part-to-whole, structured way to teach literacy to students struggling with reading, writing, and spelling. These students are often labeled as dyslexic. Literacy teachers and programs that use the Orton-Gillingham approach employ a variety of multi-sensory tools to help struggling students process language in more effective ways.
What is multisensory learning?
Multisensory learning is a method of teaching that communicates information to students through multiple sensory pathways such as sight, sound, and touch.
For example, a multisensory approach to teaching phonics to students with dyslexia would have students seeing the letters, hearing their sounds, and tracing those sounds in the air or on paper. Students might also chant the sounds and use color-coded cards to identify, categorize, and connect letters with the sounds they represent. This is vital for students with learning challenges such as dyslexia because tangible learning tools help them to process abstract symbols.
Multisensory learning is a method of teaching that communicates information to students through multiple sensory pathways such as sight, sound, and touch.
For example, a multisensory approach to teaching phonics to students with dyslexia would have students seeing the letters, hearing their sounds, and tracing those sounds in the air or on paper. Students might also chant the sounds and use color-coded cards to identify, categorize, and connect letters with the sounds they represent. This is vital for students with learning challenges such as dyslexia because tangible learning tools help them to process abstract symbols.
How ScholarSkills Uses Multi-sensory Learning in its Sentence-Smart Literacy Curriculum
At ScholarSkills, we created the Sentence-Smart Language Arts literacy program to illustrate how kids can learn in exciting, effective ways through V.I.T.A.L. multisensory strategies. V.I.T.A.L. stands for Visual, Interactive, Tactile, Auditory Learning. It’s our innovative way of implementing the Orton-Gillingham approach. Using this V.I.T.A.L. strategy, we help kids to “see,” “touch,” and “hear” letters as sounds when we are teaching them the phonetic (or sound) structures of words. Our interactive letter-sound cards enable students to build and to decode words by using actual index cards embedded with sounds in QR codes. Students then get to “create” their own words and scan them to hear the sounds within those words so that they can spell and read more effectively.
What is “part-to-whole”?
The Orton-Gillingham approach is characterized by its emphasis on the “part-to-whole” methodology. This means, for example, that Orton-Gillingham instructors would teach students the parts of words to help them read whole words. Every word consists of letters. Letters stand for sounds. This means that every letter is simply a symbol for a sound, and that every word is simply a sequence of sounds (or a combination of symbols called letters) read from left to right. The Orton-Gillingham approach to teaching reading is phonetically based. This means that instead of learning whole words by sight, students learn that letters are symbols for sounds and that words consist of letters. Therefore, words can be read by simply “sounding out” their letters. Orton-Gillingham instructors teach students to identify letters as sounds that become the parts of sequences of sounds called words. They teach from letter parts to whole words.
This “parts-to-whole” principle governs Orton-Gillingham’s instructional approach to every subject. When instructors use our Sentence-Smart Language Arts Grammar program, they discover the systematic, part-to-whole instruction that helps kids to learn most effectively. First, we teach students the parts of speech and the parts of sentences. Then we teach them how to use the parts of speech and the parts of sentences to analyze and construct sentences. Finally, we teach them how to organize sentences in logical ways to create paragraphs.
This highly structured, systematic, part-to-whole instruction in reading and writing helps students challenged with dyslexia and other language processing difficulties to categorize information in their brains more effectively and to access that information more easily.
What is “part-to-whole”?
The Orton-Gillingham approach is characterized by its emphasis on the “part-to-whole” methodology. This means, for example, that Orton-Gillingham instructors would teach students the parts of words to help them read whole words. Every word consists of letters. Letters stand for sounds. This means that every letter is simply a symbol for a sound, and that every word is simply a sequence of sounds (or a combination of symbols called letters) read from left to right. The Orton-Gillingham approach to teaching reading is phonetically based. This means that instead of learning whole words by sight, students learn that letters are symbols for sounds and that words consist of letters. Therefore, words can be read by simply “sounding out” their letters. Orton-Gillingham instructors teach students to identify letters as sounds that become the parts of sequences of sounds called words. They teach from letter parts to whole words.
This “parts-to-whole” principle governs Orton-Gillingham’s instructional approach to every subject. When instructors use our Sentence-Smart Language Arts Grammar program, they discover the systematic, part-to-whole instruction that helps kids to learn most effectively. First, we teach students the parts of speech and the parts of sentences. Then we teach them how to use the parts of speech and the parts of sentences to analyze and construct sentences. Finally, we teach them how to organize sentences in logical ways to create paragraphs.
This highly structured, systematic, part-to-whole instruction in reading and writing helps students challenged with dyslexia and other language processing difficulties to categorize information in their brains more effectively and to access that information more easily.
