A Look at the Evolution of American English
We will be celebrating the 250th birthday of the United States this year. To reflect on our 250 years of independence, we must examine who we are and where we...
Thoughts From My Notebook
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When two vowels go walking...
well, if you do see two vowels walking, this is a problem. Along with my aforementioned knee jerk reactions to hearing magic e, I cringe equally hard hearing people in the reading world say to their students, " When two...
What does Multisensory look like in an OG lesson?
Orton Gillingham is a multisensory approach, sometimes referred to as multisensory learning, which is not the same as teaching through learning styles. Multisensory instruction has undoubtedly caught the attention of educators, however, this is not a new craze; it has...
I just took Orton Gillinghan training, now what?
Taking an Orton Gillingham course is just the start of your training. So, if you watched a youtube video of a person hanging wallpaper does that qualify you to hang wallpaper in other peoples’ homes? Would your walls be as...
Handwriting instruction in an OG lesson
How often have you done an intake session with your new student only to discover their handwriting was illegible? As we know, the struggle that appears at age six usually hasn’t miraculously resolved by age 10 or 16 or even...
Word books... can you ever have too many?
When I took Orton-Gillingham training we received several word books—all classics, all invaluable tools for an OG practitioner. Why do we need so many books? Why isn't just one enough? As I mentioned earlier, I received the following books...
Eliciting questions, error correction, Socratic questioning
Let’s get to the bottom of this. I was taught to ask eliciting questions to bring student errors to correction. When working with an Orton-Gillingham practitioner we want the student to develop skills that they can bring to the real...
Why playing games in an Orton-Gillingham lesson is a good idea
I don’t know about you, but when I took my first Orton-Gillingham course I was taught to be: firm but gentle, quiet but engaging, encouraging but not forceful, professional yet compassionate. We definitely were not taught to end the...
Endings rules don't need to be hard.
I made it easy for you. As some of you know, I wrote a book on how to teach the endings rules. I knew there were a million workbooks on this topic, although few of the workbooks give an...