The new Building Readers For Life Academy Membership is open!
The world of Orton-Gillingham teacher training programs can be a bit confusing for those who are new on the scene. Although there are numerous training programs that are based on Orton Gillingham, what is sometimes referred to as “straight Orton Gillingham” is not a program, but a group of principles underlying the practice of teaching…
Podcasts are a great way to incorporate media consumption into your daily life. Unlike video or reading from books, podcasts are made to be listened to “on the go”. The listening format is particularly accessible for people with dyslexia and those who find themselves super busy. I enjoy listening to podcasts in the car and…
A picture is worth a thousand words. This saying is perhaps one of the most well-known proverbs. It has iterations in many different languages, and for good reason. A picture, and certainly a film, can convey complexity and the multi-dimensional aspects of human issues in a more gripping way than words alone can manage. In…
If you were to write a job description for yourself, chances are it would be full of many varied types of tasks of varying complexities. As an educator, you wear many hats. You fill many different roles in the lives of your students and in the culture of our schools. Like human jobs, phonograms have…
Tyler’s classroom teacher shows you his latest writing assignment. He scored 100% on his latest posttest on structured literacy concepts, but his writing sample is full of errors. Despite all the practice on the k/ck spelling rule, he has not applied it here even once. You pop into Camryn’s classroom during reading time and despite…
I recently asked my email subscribers to participate in a brief survey. I asked them why they are thankful for Orton-Gillingham Methods. And you certainly did answer! There were so many wonderful thoughts shared about the ways in which OG has been a powerful influence on so many lives. From being a foundational part of…
Although the hard sound for g is more common than the soft sound, eventually the soft sound becomes necessary to learn and master. Many children may already associate the /j/ sound with the letter g due to the letter name. However, due to its greater utility, we typically teach the hard g sound first.
Letter names can often be confusing for young children just learning to read and can make learning sounds more challenging. Have you ever had a student who said that y said /w/ or w said /d/. Another place this tends to come up is with the letter c. Many students will identify the /s/ sound…
You will find most teachers of children with dyslexia are not fans of the weekly spelling test. Words arranged by theme or covering multiple spelling patterns is a recipe for failure for many of our students. Other students may manage to learn the words for the Friday spelling test, but not be able to spell…