Orton- Gillingham Approach

The Orton–Gillingham Approach to reading instruction was developed in the early-20th century. It is language-based, multisensory, structured, sequential, cumulative, cognitive, and flexible.

Its based on the following elements:

  • The programme is personalised to individual students and their needs.
  • Its multisensory in that it uses all the senses (auditory, visual and kinaesthetic) to learn e.g. a student is taught the letter “a” by writing it in the air and saying it at the same time.
  • Students are taken back to the basics of their language learning so that he gaps are closed so that a solid foundation can be built upon. Beginning by reading and writing sounds in isolation (phonemes), then blending sounds into syllables and words. Elements of language—consonants, vowels, digraph blends, and diphthongs are introduced in an orderly fashion. Only later, learners proceed to advanced structural elements such as syllable types, roots, prefixes and suffixes.

Dyslexia reading well site

For further information view Orton Academy website

 

Davis Method:

Ron Davis, the author of “The Gift of Dyslexia” believes that people with Dyslexia think in pictures because they find it challenging to think in sounds. The methods therefor use this approach to teach children to read. One of the methods is to use clay to create the words and then make a picture to go with it (telling a story). More information on this approach can be found on www.symbolmastery.com and www.dyslexia.com

They work on developing a child’s ability to read “trigger” words which are words that a dyslexic person cannot create a visual image for. Every time a child comes across one of these words, he draws a blank and loses focus and fluency on the sentence e.g. The brown dog and the big blue ball. (red words are trigger words). The Davis method also calls this becoming “. disoriented”. Take a look at the following link where this concept is demonstrated http://www.davisdyslexia.com/disorientation.html

The Davis website offers his free online Dyslexia test http://www.testdyslexia.com/

Trigger words: a, about, again, ago, all, almost, also, always, an, and, another, an, anyhow, any, anyway, as, at, away, back, be, am, are, is was, were, being, been, because, become, became, becoming, becomes, before, between, but, by, can, could, can’t, cannot, come, came, comes, coming, do, did, does, doing, done, don’t, doesn’t, down, each, either, else, even, ever, every, everything, for, from, front, full, get, gets, getting, got, go, goes, going, gone, went, have, had, has, having, he, he’s, her, hers, here, him, his, how, I, if, in, into, isn’t, it, making, many, may, maybe, me, mine, more, most, much, my, neither, never, no, none, nor, not, now, of, off, on, one onto, or, other, others, otherwise, our, ours, out, over, put, puts, putting, run, ran, running, runs, same, see, saw, seen, sees, she, she’s, shall, should, so, some, soon, stand, standing, stands, stood, such, sure, take, takes, taking, took, than, that’s, the, their, theirs, them, then, there, these, hey, they’re, this, those, through, to too, unless, until, up, upon, us, very, we we’re what, when, where, where’s whether, which, while, who, who’s whose, why, will, with, within, without, won’t, would, yet, you, your, you’re, yours (excerpt from Davis, R.D. (1995). The Gift of Dyslexia. Souvenir press., UK.)