All you need to know before you schedule a lesson

I use a program called Heggerty to teach phonemic awareness. Each grade level has it's own program, beginning with pre-K. Preschool students will work with words using a variety of common nursery rhymes. Every grade level includes an explicit and systematic approach in which students are practicing blending, segmenting, isolating and manipulating words, syllables, and onset-rime and/or phonemes. I will provide a digital version of the program for daily home practice. Phonemic awareness is the BEST PREDICTOR of future reading skills!

A “typical” Orton-Gillingham instructional reading session includes: Review and practice applying concepts that were taught in previous sessions. This takes place in the form of a 3-part drill where we review letter sounds, practice reading real and nonsense words, and practice writing the letters that match given sounds. Teaching new concept(s) at the pace that “fits” the student. Some students learn one concept per session; some learn several new concepts.Students use multisensory techniques to “program” the new concept, then practice reading and spelling words that contain it. Students will work on writing sentences with proper sentence structure (1st-3rd grade). Students will practice reading and writing “red words”- words that can’t be spelled the way they sound (ie. was sounds like /w/ /u/ /z/ but is spelled differently). I often use fun games to reinforce red words so that they become more automatic for the students. Student will spend a short amount of time reading from a book that we’ve identified is a good “fit”; he/she identifies and applies the concepts we’ve worked on in our sessions while reading.

There is a common myth that children will simply learn to read through exposure to literacy at home and school without any real structure. This is simply not true. If you are worried your child isn't learning enough in kindergarten, or they exhibit any delay in early reading skills (see early signs of dyslexia), early intervention is the best way to set your child up for later reading success. Kindergarten tutoring involves a lot of play! We learn nursery rhymes, play fun games, and use our creativity and imagination to build up the language skills necessary to become a strong reader. This is not a kill and drill tutoring situation. It is fun, engaging, and it works!

Multisensory learning (MSL) helps an individual learn by using more than one sense. For children with dyslexia, the use of the visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile modalities can be very helpful. A major component of the Orton-Gillingham Approach is that it must be multisensory. This approach aligns perfectly with how our brains learn. Visual: - seeing the actual letters in written form - looking at each letter's shape and features Auditory - hearing the sounds of the letters - auditory commands - playing with sounds Kinesthetic: - body movements that help remember letter/sound connections - finger tapping letter sounds as we spell - pounding out words in a sentence with our hands - sky writing Tactile: - practicing correct letter formation in sand or shaving cream - writing "red words" over a bumpy surface - making letters/words with clay or other objects - tracing sandpaper letters Tactile: writing letters in sand or shaving cream, writing "red words" over a bumpy screen, molding letters out of clay, using tactile objects such as blocks to identify the number of sounds in a word, etc.