Getting to Know the Orton-Gillingham Approach


  When students fail to receive proper literacy instruction, it has been found that 43% of illiterate Americans live in poverty whereas those with strong literacy skills make up only 5% of those living in poverty (Williams & Lynch, 2010, p. 66). This makes the need the Orton-Gillingham remediation approach that much more essential. According to Richey and Goeke (2006), Orton-Gillingham (OG) is a, “Systematic, sequential, multisensory, synthetic and phonics-based approach to teaching and reading. Explicit instruction is provided in phonology and phonological awareness, sound-symbol correspondence, syllables, morphology, syntax, and semantics” (p. 171). Instructing using the multi-sensory approach, engages students in the visual, auditory and kinesthetic/tactile learning pathways, known as the Language triangle (Ritchey & Goeke, 2006, p. 171).Orton-Gillingham is a widely accepted intervention for students with dyslexia because it “applies rigorous, systematic, and objective procedures to obtain valid knowledge relevant to reading development, reading instruction, and reading difficulties” and meets the legal mandates for No Child Left Behind as well as the requirements of scientifically-based reading instruction (Richey & Goeke, 2006, p. 172). Richey and Goeke (2006) reviewed and summarized the current scientific research to determine the effectiveness of the OG program. Their results found that several studies on OG has positive effects and outcomes for various groups of students including overall word reading, word attack/ spelling, and comprehension (p. 180). When used as a supplemental resource, generally helped students acquire phonemic awareness and the alphabetic principle which is important to note because students who performed the lowest in the categories showed the most overall improvement. Moreover, “no substantial differences in the ability to read connected text as measure by ORF were observed between treatment and comparison students (Scheffel, Shaw, and Shaw, 2008, p. 148).

References 
Ritchey, K. D., & Goeke, J. L. (2006). Orton-Gillingham and Orton-Gillingham-Based
             Reading Instruction: A Review of the Literature. Journal Of Special Education,
            40(3), 171-183.
Scheffel, D. L., Shaw, J. C., & Shaw, R. (2008). The Efficacy of a Supplemental
            MultiSensory Reading Program for First-Grade Students.. Reading Improvement,
            45(3), 139-152.
Williams, J. A., & Lynch, S. A. (2010). Dyslexia: What Teachers Need to Know. Kappa
            Delta Pi Record, 46(2), 66-70.

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