Kindergarten Implements Orton-Gillingham Approach

At Kew-Forest, we believe in staying on the cutting edge of education, to ensure that all of our students are able to learn in the manner best suited to them. As such, Mrs. Russo has recently completed her first round of Orton-Gillingham (OG) training, in order to complement her already vast kindergarten teaching experience.
 
Introduced in the 1930s, the Orton-Gillingham approach teaches word formation before word meanings using three learning modalities: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. “Orton-Gillingham is a phonics-based approach to reading instruction,” explained Mrs. Russo. “It is comprehensive and integrated, systematic, sequential, cumulative, uses direct instruction and is multi-sensory.”
 
There are five features to the Orton-Gillingham approach. First, it is language-based: focused on a technique of teaching language, understanding the nature of language, the learning mechanisms, and language-learning processes. It is a multi-sensory program, using action-oriented teaching sessions that involve constant interactions between teacher and student, and the simultaneous use of auditory, visual, and kinesthetic elements for optimal learning. The program is structured, sequential and cumulative, introducing language elements systematically, advancing to new elements as they continually review old material. There is a cognitive element to the OG approach, as students learn about English language’s history and rules. Finally, Orton-Gillingham is a flexible program in which teaching is diagnostic and prescriptive: teachers ensure that their students are not implementing patterns without understanding, and they re-teach rules from the beginning when their students display confusion.
Though Orton-Gillingham is used most frequently to teach students with dyslexia, Mrs. Russo believes that her training will benefit the entire class, saying that her goal is to use it for one-on-one remedial and enrichment work, both in kindergarten and beyond. She said that research shows that 30% of children require direct instruction, but that 100% of children benefit, making it an ideal program for all kindergarteners.  
 
She has already implemented her training in the class, using Orton-Gillingham for sight word, or “popcorn word” instruction. As the children learn sight word recognition, they write the word on paper using a red crayon with a screen underneath. Once Mrs. Russo checks that the word was spelled correctly, the students stand up and arm tap the word three times, naming each letter. Next, they trace with their finger the crayon bumps made when they formed when they wrote the word over the screen and name the letters three times. Then they put the screen over the paper and trace the word and name the letters another three times. The final step is to turn their paper over, write the word without the screen once and then get Mrs. Russo’s approval, before writing the word two more times, with an original sentence in pencil and the new sight word underlined with red crayon.
 
“In my opinion, the Whole Language approach leaves out a lot of things,” said Mrs. Russo. “Therefore, I thought it would be a nice addition to our current phonics-based reading program, as well as the phonemic awareness, early literacy, auditory perception, and articulation through movement that we currently use through “Sounds In Motion.”’
 
Already, Mrs. Russo is seeing a positive response to the Orton-Gillingham approach. She said, “The children have responded very favorably to OG methods. They especially like ‘arm tapping out’ their sight words. Anything that involves moving, banging, shaking, etc. tickles my little friends' fancy.”