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…
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.
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…
Have you ever had a student decide a word didn’t look right so they added an e to the end? When in doubt, they throw an e on the end. Many students learn one of the reasons for silent e as part of the standard curriculum. Most of the other uses remain a mystery. Silent…
Some spelling considerations are less about clear rules to follow than frequency and expectations. Such is the case for spelling the long o sound. O-e is the most common spelling for the long o sound in the middle of a word, but oa isn’t far behind. Ow is the most common way to spell the…
Teaching Tips for Vowel Teams Some of the mountains that our struggling readers must climb are bigger than others. One skill that we must introduce fairly early on, but that will take a long time to master is the vowel team syllable. In principle, the vowel team syllable is easy to spot and easy to…
5 Fun and Easy Ways to Practice Spelling Generalizations When you are working with children in Orton-Gillingham lessons or other reading interventions, there is often a big discrepancy between our students’ proficiency with understanding a spelling generalization and their proficiency with the application of that spelling generalization. It takes a lot…
It’s been a busy summer in the world of Orton-Gillingham this summer! I am always seeking new books, materials and lesson ideas for using the Orton-Gillingham approach, and today I am back to share some wonderful teaching tips for teaching spelling strategies. I apologize for the summer hiatus from blogging, but things are picking back…
Hi everyone! When using the Orton-Gillingham approach or in any reading intervention program, the review portion is such an important component. Using games to review is a great way to reinforce learning. Today, I have a fun game to share with you for reviewing the doubling rule, also know as the 1+1+1 rule. Welcome…
What are learned words? In Orton-Gillingham terms, learned words are what many people call sight words. You may also refer to them as red words or high frequency words. Most teachers can agree that learned words cannot be sounded out, and make up a large amount of our text in the English language. Our students…
