Jennie Sjursen 0:01
We're trying to figure out how to move forward. We're looking at different programs and tutors. There's so many options. Orton Gillingham or OG keeps coming up over and over again. What is OG? And what does it based on?
Jennie Sjursen 0:17
I'm Jenny Sjursen, ex special educator turned dyslexia interventionist. And wasn't so long ago that I too, was overwhelmed by balanced literacy versus structured literacy, education speak, and everything in between. Fast forward after many, many hours of self driven education. And you'll see I've built a thriving dyslexia practice helping students from ages six to 18. My specialties, working with a quote unquote difficult almost always to the student, and breaking down the complexities of dyslexic to everyday language strategies and action steps.
Jennie Sjursen 0:57
Before we dive in a quick reminder, we are officially in the IEP season. To help you out we've put together an IEP snapshot to help you track all the important details, plus a 12 questions to ask at a dyslexia IEP meeting. With Answers podcast and matching PDF. We've linked to both PDFs and podcasts in our show notes. Go ahead, hit pause, bookmark the podcast and grab a copy of the PDFs. We'll wait for you I also have a little housekeeping to take care of. In our last episode, how the brain learns to read I massacred researcher stainless dough Hans last name, and I apologize. Originally, I planned on talking about speech to print in this episode. But as I pulled my research and started writing, I realized I was going to frequently pull in and reference the Orton Gillingham approach.
Jennie Sjursen 1:53
So on further reflection, I realized I really needed to cover the Orton Gillingham approach first. So let's start at the beginning. The Orton Gillingham approach is derived from the work of Dr. Samuel Orton and Anna Gillingham. Dr. Orange was a neuro psychiatrist and pathologist. His interest in learning disabilities specifically reading stems from his early work with adults who suffered from brain damage. He noticed that some kids with quote unquote normal brain functioning had similar language disabilities as his adult patients, and he was driven to find out why. Dr. aurons work led him to believe that this quote unquote word blindness as dyslexia was originally known, was due to poor connections and organization systems in the brain.
Jennie Sjursen 2:40
This was back in the 1920s Modern technologies have gone on to prove many of his theories. While Dr. Orton was the why behind the approach, and a Gillingham was the how she was a gifted psychologist and educator who worked with Dr Oren to train teachers and create instructional materials that brought the Orton Gillingham approach to reading to life and Gillingham along with Bessie Stillman wrote the Gillingham manual which remains to this day one of the most important text in the Orton Gillingham Academy. The first thing to know Orton Gillingham is an approach, not a program, there is no curriculum set, scope and sequence are dedicated materials. This is due to the approach being centered around the individual learning needs of each student. It is not a one size fits all approach. In its true form practitioners design lessons and materials to meet students where they're at, and then fold the new concepts and skills.
Jennie Sjursen 3:38
They use a set of principles to guide them for this work. Now, you may have been told to ask what OG program does your school use, or maybe you were given recommendations for a specific ot program. So what's going on here? Oh G in its true form is a lot of work behind the scenes. In an effort to streamline the work and make it more accessible to teachers in the classroom. Several programs have been derived from the principles of the OG approach. For example, Wilson was created to streamline the approach but was also modified so it can be used with small groups. Some other well known programs derived from the OG principles are spire take flight, and Barton. Some of these programs are broad, covering decoding and encoding. Some of them are more specific, focusing mainly on decoding. So what are these principles? First, we need to know that there are five governing bodies that handle OG certification and accreditation.
Jennie Sjursen 4:38
They each follow principles, but they may be worded or grouped differently. As I'm a certified member of the Orton Gillingham Academy. I'm most familiar with their wording or grouping, so I'm going to follow their framework. The principles as stated by Oga are diagnostic and prescriptive, individualized, language based an alphabetic phonetic, simultaneous multi sensory, direct and explicit, structured sequential, cumulative but flexible. And that's key, synthetic and analytic, cognitive and emotionally sound. So what does that mean? Diagnostic and prescription. Our practitioner is always assessing and analyzing a student's responses, looking for strengths and weaknesses. This is the diagnostic piece. Where does the students struggle? Then they take the data collected and use it to plan new instruction. This is where the prescriptive piece comes in.
Jennie Sjursen 5:42
What are they going to do to strengthen the student's areas of weaknesses? individualized instruction is put together to meet the needs of the individual student in front of the practitioner that not only includes their strengths and weaknesses, but also who they are and what interests them. Do they like Minecraft or dragons, a practitioner who is individualizing their instruction is going to weave that into their sessions. Language Based in alphabetic slash phonetic, the practitioner integrates all aspects of language from phonemes, morphology and text structure through oral language reading, writing and spelling. Simultaneous multi sensory instruction uses hearing, seeing and movement simultaneously. Direct and explicit. Instruction is providing a step by step manner modeled and practiced. Instruction moves from the practitioner supporting the student through the task to the student being able to do the tasks independently.
Jennie Sjursen 6:43
Structured sequential and cumulative, but flexible. Instruction is organized and moves from simple elements to complex lessons continuously spiraled back to reinforce previously taught skills, what is taught and when is flexible based on the needs of the students. Flexibility is the piece I see missing from many of the box programs or curricula that are based on OG. In order to streamline everything, the programs rely on basic entry points, regardless of prior knowledge, specific sequencing and scripting, which makes the program less individualized in my mind. Synthetic and analytic synthetic instruction works from the parts of the whole, for example, working with sounds to syllables, and then morphemes layering in complexity. And oolitic instruction is the reverse whole two parts. In this case, taking a word and breaking it apart into its sound syllables or morphemes.
Jennie Sjursen 7:41
In order to spell or get at the meaning of cognitive instruction encourages the student to think about what they have learned and apply it to new situations. practitioners want their students to think and solve the riddle in front of them rather than using rote memorization. They want their students to know the why and apply that knowledge when reading and writing. Emotionally sound during sessions practitioners provide a safe place for students to take chances, try new things and build their self confidence. It's a practitioners job to move students forward, but at the pace that's appropriate for the student in front of them. No two students work at the same pace. That was a lot. Let's do a quick recap. Orton Gillingham is a multi sensory approach to reading and writing instruction. The approach is based on the work of Dr. Samuel Orton and Anna Gillingham.
Jennie Sjursen 8:37
And there's several guiding principles. Well, at its core, og is not a box program or a set curriculum. That said there are some well known box programs that were derived from the OG principles. Some of those are Wilson Spire, take flight and Barton. If you have any further questions about the Orton Gillingham approach and its principles, please feel free to sneak into my inbox.
Jennie Sjursen 9:01
And if you love what you learn so far, please give our little podcast a five star rating we would so appreciate it and thank you to everyone who's done it so far. Until next time I hope you enjoyed this episode of literacy untangled if you love this episode as much as I did, head on over and rate and subscribe so you never miss an episode. If you want to continue the conversation or share your takeaways, head on over to our Instagram at literacy untangled and comment on your favorite part. I can't wait to hang out with you again soon. Bye
