An Orton-Gillingham Approach

An Orton-Gillingham approach to teaching reading and decoding skills uses a structured, sequential, and prescriptive method in a multi-sensory fashion. Presenting information in a multi-sensory way simply means using as many senses as possible – usually hearing, seeing, and touching.

At Bravo! Reading, we know that kids with dyslexia learn differently than other kids. This doesn’t mean there is something wrong with them. It just means they need different ways to learn. Most kids who have dyslexia are hands-on or tactile learners. This means they need to not only touch to learn – they need to “do” to learn.

Movement is their jam!

Because of this, Bravo! takes the Orton-Gillingham method and puts it on steroids. We make sure kids with dyslexia master important phonemic awareness skills through gross motor and cross-lateral movements. This is what gels with the dyslexic reader…it’s the language they can understand!

Instead of moving tiles with the fingers, which is a fine motor movement skill, we have kids use dot dabbers or bingo markers to get the whole upper body involved in learning. This gross motor movement is what works for the dyslexic reader!

A Double Dose of Good Stuff

To learn letter sounds and set in tricky concepts like double vowels, we have kids use dot dabbers with cross lateral movements. This simply means crossing the imaginary vertical midline of the body. These movements also help build new neural pathways in the brain.

Since spelling and reading are especially troublesome to students with dyslexia, an Orton-Gillingham approach is especially helpful, not only for readers with dyslexia, but any with reading problems. Even better, research tells us that kids with dyslexia do best with an Orton-Gillingham based decoding program.

Where it all Started

The Orton-Gillingham approach comes from its founders, Samuel T. Orton and Anna Gillingham. Samuel was a neuropsychiatrist and pathologist, living from 1879 to 1948. He was a pioneer on reading failure and related language processing difficulties as well as remediations for them.

With the Orton-Gillingham method, learning sessions are action oriented with auditory, visual, and kinesthetic elements reinforcing one another. 

Samuel Orton is known to have identified the syndrome of dyslexia as an educational problem in as early as 1925.

Anna Gillingham was an educator and psychologist who had a large mastery of language who lived from 1878–1963. With Dr. Orton’s encouragement, she compiled and published instructional materials in the 1930’s that provided the foundation for student instruction and teacher training. This has become the Orton-Gillingham approach.

Three Distinct Areas

There are three main areas of focus in the Orton-Gillingham approach as described below.

1. Letters and Sounds – letters and sound knowledge is essential for both phonic decoding and sight-word learning.
2. Phonic Decoding – early phonological awareness skills enable development of letter-sound knowledge. Advanced phonological awareness skills should continue as the student gains a strong decoding foundation.
3. Orthographic mapping – this is when unfamiliar words become automatic sight words.

Letters and sounds are the true backbone to any decoding program. Before a child can read, there must be a firm, automatic knowledge of letter sounds, including both long and short vowel sounds. All too often, kids with dyslexia bypass or fail to completely master this stage of reading development.

They slip through the cracks. Then, as more difficult material is expected of them, they fall apart. They end up guessing at words, desperately attempting ineffective strategies to decode like memorizing words or engaging in trial and error reading.

Lack of Strategies

These strategies (or lack of them) put the dyslexic reader at a significant disadvantage because there are no firm decoding strategies in place for decoding (sounding out) unfamiliar words.

An Orton-Gillingham based decoding program corrects this problem by ensuring letter sounds are learned in this multi-sensory fashion before taking dyslexic kids to the next level of reading. Bravo! takes it a step further with gross-motor movement and brain-based learning! This is the magic formula for the dyslexic reader!

Phonic decoding is the ability to identify unfamiliar words and sound them out. It’s important that kids with dyslexia have this strategy to decode new words they come across to keep them from forming bad habits like guessing at words or memorizing words.

Orton-Gillingham research tells us that if kids with dyslexia are familiar with the forty-four phonemic units – the small units of sound that make up our language – then they will have a better chance at decoding. Examples of these phonemic units are “up”, “ib”, “en”, “ap”, and “og”.

Basic Sounds

Once a child with dyslexia is comfortable and familiar with these basic sound units, then they can be built upon. At Bravo! we know about the hierarchy of reading and let readers build and explore these units one step at a time. We also ensure that each decoding unit is truly mastered before moving on to the next by our Bravo! Checklists. These are quick, easy evaluations at the end of each level. Readers don’t move up to the next level until all phonemes are mastered.

The final focus of the Orton-Gillingham method is orthographic mapping. This is a mouthful but really quite simple. It’s when automaticity or basic word recognition sets in.

Automaticity means that an action becomes automatic; we don’t have to put conscious effort into it. It happens naturally. Decoding should happen with automaticity, or there is a lag, which affects both reading comprehension and fluency in a negative way. Word recognition is important, as it keeps readers from having to sound out words letter by letter each time the word is seen.

Automaticity is Important for Reading

Also, without automaticity, it’s too easy for the reader to engage in those poor reading habits that get in the way of successfully sounding out a new word. One of the worst bad habits kids with poor reading skills engage in is memorization of words. This is different than orthographic mapping in that the attempts at memorization are random and not based on first decoding the word and using it until it becomes an easily recognized word.

Although the Orton-Gillingham approach is primarily geared toward children with dyslexia, it can work for any reader.

Developed in the 1930’s, the Orton-Gillingham approach has stood the test of time. But it only makes sense to take current brain-based learning research and modern gross motor skills knowledge, adding to the basic methods originally used so long ago.

And that’s exactly what Bravo! Reading has done!

The Bravo! Reading System and its expansion packs have been used with a 98% success rate in the Harp Learning Institute learning centers in Northern California for over twenty years. Kids adore using dot dabbers to learn decoding skills and to cross the midline of their bodies.

They delight in our fun to use auditory and visual cues like the Silent “E” Slide and the Silent “E” Shuffle. The pictures, color, auditory and visual cues, predictability, brain-based learning, and gross motor movements make sense to the dyslexic reader. It’s their learning language…especially the movement, and that’s the main plus of using Bravo!

These multisensory actions keep dyslexic readers happy, focused, and on task. While they’re having a blast, they have no idea they are setting in important decoding skills.

And everyone knows an on-task learner is one who learns more. Time on task is like gold!

Building on to Orton-Gillingham Methods – the Bravo! Beginner

Kids who’ve failed to learn letter sounds with all other mainstream methods have quickly and easily mastered all letter sounds, including long and short sounds with our Bravo! Beginner.

An example of a page in the Bravo! Beginner

The Bravo! Beginner slowly weans kids off the pictures, colors, cues, and auditory sayings so that true knowledge of letter sounds is displayed.

The Missing Step…

The next logical step once kids know letter sounds like the back of their hands is to show them how to blend two letter sounds together.

Traditional reading programs rarely focus on this important skill or gloss over it completely. They immediately thrust readers into sounding out three-letter words. For most kids, this works just fine. However, if your child has dyslexia or another condition standing in the way, it can only prove to confuse and frustrate the child.

In Level 1 of the Bravo! Reading System, kids use dot dabbers or bingo markers to pound on the Bravo! Bullseye while saying the sound out loud at the same time. This gross motor movement sets in the sound and ties it to the visual image of the letter. Then readers slide the dot dabber across the word above the Bravo! Bolt, blending the letters together at the same time.

They love doing this and will often argue that they are NOT reading!

These Bravo! Bolts and Bravo! Bulls eyes are only two of our Bravo! Buttons. These buttons are visual cues that are tied to movement – helping the dyslexic reader set in important decoding skills in a fun way that makes sense to them. Print is super large to keep out intimidation.

An example of a page in Level 1 of the Bravo! Reading System

Bravo! Reading spends a lot of time helping kids with dyslexia master decoding two-letter words! Kids with dyslexia are often weak in visual and auditory memory skills. Usually, they’re only able to hold two to three images or words in memory. This means they are at an instant disadvantage when it comes to sounding out three-letter words, as each letter of a word represents a shape and/or sound in memory.

Save Money and Get More with the Complete Bravo! Reading System!

Order the Complete Bravo! Reading System and save tubs of money. With the Complete Bravo! Reading System, you’ll get the entire eleven levels of the Bravo! Reading System, the Bravo! Beginner, plus all the Bravo! Reading Expansion Packs…for just $399.99.

The expansion packs you’ll receive are the Bravo! Booster Pack, the Bravo! Super Booster Pack, the Bravo! Decoder Pack, the Bravo! Race from Reversals Pack, and the Bravo! “Seeing” for Reading Pack.

All for less then the cost of the Bravo! Reading System alone!

Bravo! Reading Adds More than Traditional Orton-Gillingham Methods!

Bravo! Reading uses not only the 44 basic phonemes of the English language but continues to build on this basic structure. The reading house is built one logical brick at a time. We continue using movement and brain-based learning along with multi-sensory activities to set in more advanced decoding skills like the following:

• Variants – words and word spellings that don’t fit English language rules
• Double vowels – vowel combinations that come together making a new and unique sound
• Blends and digraphs – two consonants that come together to make one new and unique sound
• Focusing on decoding two letters together before forcing a student to read three or more
• Silent e – giving students a sure way to “see” the silent “e” at the end of words to make the vowel sound long

Affecting Large Populations of Students

The Orton-Gillingham approach reveals how reading problems affect large populations of students. Learning to read, write, and spell isn’t natural or easy for these kids. If you have a child with dyslexia or a student who is failing to read, you need to veer away from mainstream reading programs if you want results.

In 2018, only about one-third of the American population fourth grade student population demonstrated reading proficiency. The proportion of struggling readers is far higher in minority and poor areas.

Proper instruction is critical for these kids to reach reading success! Yet most are still made to endure antiquated methodologies in mainstream classrooms where reading instruction is aimed at kids without reading issues.

An Orton-Gillingham based reading program can make the difference for a child who struggles to read, especially a child with dyslexia. Early intervention helps!

Decoding Skills are the Backbone of Reading!

Like any learning issue, the sooner poor decoding skills are diagnosed, the easier it is to put a plan of action in place to help the dyslexic child succeed. If kids with dyslexia don’t receive early intervention, they develop bad reading habits, and it becomes difficult to replace them with smart decoding strategies.

Also, kids develop a poor self-esteem when they fall behind in reading. Reading transfers to every subject in school – even math these days. When reading skills are below grade level, its difficult to earn high marks in school. The failure chain starts and unless something is done about it, the child’s self-image suffers.

An Orton-Gillinham approach to decoding provides a unique and refreshing way to meet the needs of the dyslexic reader. And it only makes sense that if your child has dyslexia that a different approach is needed.

The reading program that worked for you or your parents most likely won’t work for your child!