The Orton Gillingham Method & Our Reading Program
Most
children today are taught a combination of phonics along with whole
language, which is sufficient for most. These children learn to
read by initially learning the sounds of the letters, learning word
families and memorizing high frequency words. When reading, they
use these tools to decode words. If faced with a word they don’t
know, the child is able to identify the word's components and
translate it into something recognizable. To the parent, it seems
like they just “pick it up” as they read more and more. This is not
the case for a dyslexic child.
Studies have shown that people with dyslexia must be taught phoneme and morphological awareness. This means they must learn all the sounds, along with the spelling rules for the English language which requires an intensive phonics program, unlike what is usually offered in the main stream. Since those with dyslexia often have a poor memory where language is concerned this should be done with constant repetition for reinforcement.
The OG method is known for being a phonics based multifaceted approach, in that the student learns through auditory, visual and kinesthetics components. Here, the child hears, sees and writes what is being taught, which is done in a structured, systematic manner with constant repitition.
Our reading program uses the ideas based on OG as a springboard for
a more thorogh and complete curruiculum that can be done at home
with no training. It goes over phonics, rules, exceptions, includes
the most commonly used words, and is done with repetition. When a
lesson introduces a topic, the exercises for that lesson will be a
combination of what was just taught and what was taught in earlier
lessons. Each lesson has a nice blend of elements in which the
student is required to listen, speak and write. Exerceises are kept
short and to the point to avoid frustration and boredom. The program
is flexible in that concepts can be monitored and redone as needed,
and all the dictations can be done through the website.
Below is the table of contents, where you can see how every sound is covered:
