Top Orton-Gillingham Refresher Course Options!
An Orton-Gillingham refresher course is for someone who has already completed a training course at Orton Gillingham. A refresher course reviews key principles and areas that may be trickier to teach. A refresher training may also help you plan instruction for your current students’ needs. It also provides you with the most current training information to align with current research.
If you haven’t completed an initial OG training yet, learn about the Benefits of An Orton Gillingham Teacher Training Practicum!
Why Take an Orton-Gillingham Refresher Course?
There are a lot of excellent reasons why you might want to take a refresher training at some point.
- If you have been taking a break from Orton Gillingham instruction due to changing job responsibilities, you may find a refresher training particularly valuable.
- If you are changing grade level or age groups, you may find that you take some different viewpoints from a review training.
- If you do not have the opportunity to communicate and collaborate with other Orton Gillingham practitioners on a regular basis, a refresher course can provide some valuable feedback and an opportunity to share ideas and strategies.
- If you have not done a course in number of years, it is valuable to take a refresher course to become updated to changes. It is also valuable to check your practice for fidelity against the “ideal” you learn in training. It is not at all unusual for certain procedures to become so routine, that you may not be implementing them carefully enough for maximum impact.
Are you preparing for the KPEERI? Watch this video for Study Tips for KPEERI!
Top Orton-Gillingham Refresher Course Options:
1. The Reed Charitable Foundation
The Reed Charitable Foundation or RCF offers initial trainings, but also has refresher courses. They host a one day in person class several times a year. In addition, they have a self-paced virtual option available. The refresher course covers topics such as Spelling Rules and Syllabication, Reading and Spelling through the Speech to Print lens, and Planning and implementing OG lessons. This refresher is available to people who completed a classroom educator training or higher, regardless of whether they initially trained with the RCF. This refresher course is worth 6 hours of professional development.
2. The Stern Center
The Stern Center offers an on-demand update and refresher course. It is available for anyone who has already completed an Orton Gilligham training. Although training need not have been through the Stern Center initially, if it was, this is a refresher particularly suited to your needs. This 6-hour prerecorded webinar includes updates and new research. It also reviews content such as the latest scope and sequence, a detailed review of the procedures and lesson plan, the use of objective mastery criteria, the latest research on connected vs segmented phonation, and teaching phonemic awareness for proficiency.
The Stern Center offers other webinars of specific focuses such as morphology, vocabulary, comprehension, and dysgraphia that also serve as excellent professional development opportunities. For those looking for a comprehensive OG refresher and extension, combining the Update and Refresh course with the 6-hour Focus on Level Two: Vowel Teams and Beyond prerecorded webinar provides a powerful Orton Gillingham Refresher. The Focus on Level Two is full of opportunities to practice, and trouble shoot higher levels of the scope and sequence. Areas for review include the 9 principles of Orton Gillingham instruction, words to read vs words to spell, scope and sequence, complexities of teaching r-controlled vowels and vowel teams, being diagnostic and prescriptive, and tools for data collection, progress monitoring and determining mastery.
3. IMSE: Institute for Multisensory Education
IMSE offers several refresher course options. They are all intended for people who have completed either the comprehensive or intermediate 30-hour trainings from IMSE. There are different versions of the refresher course depending on when you were originally trained. They are titled somewhat differently to align with the initial training changes. These are all online, on-demand options.
For those who took their IMSE training before June 2022, there is a 3-hour comprehensive refresher and a 5-hour Intermediate Refresher. Both trainings include six-month unlimited access and a certificate of completion. The comprehensive refresher includes a thorough review of the entire IMSE outline, assessment instructions, and differentiation instructions. The Intermediate Refresher includes review of the IMSE intermediate outline, morphology, spelling rules, and intermediate assessments.
For those who took their IMSE training after June 2022, the offerings are slightly different. The IMSE Comprehensive Orton-Gillingham Plus Refresher offers 6-hours of video, in-depth review of the entire IMSE outline, conducting assessments, and reviewing components of the lesson. The Morphology Plus Refresher provides 3 hours of video content, review of the Morphology + outline, modeling of Latin and Greek Morphology + lessons, Fluency, Vocabulary, Comprehension strategies, and review of Morphology + assessments. These trainings also include 6-month access and a certificate of completion.
Learn more about OG! Listen to season 2, episode 6 of the Together in Literacy podcast: Q&A About OG!
Choosing the refresher course that works for you is dependent on which training aligns most closely with your initial training, schedules, whether you prefer live or virtual, synchronous or on-demand, what level of students you are working with, and your budget. The right refresher course is the one that meets your needs and extends your learning.
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