How Do I Advocate for Orton-Gillingham Training in My Classroom?

As teachers and students evolve and continue to learn, Orton-Gillingham strategies remain flexible and can be adapted over time to promote continuous learning and problem-solving in every classroom.

Why Teach Orton-Gillingham and
Structured Literacy?

With constant changes in legislation, teachers will want to be prepared to support Structured Literacy in their classrooms. To feel equipped to deliver this evidence-based approach, they will need a broad knowledge of the elements and principles found in the Knowledge and Practice Standards that the International Dyslexia Association has developed to unify and certify those who teach reading.

Structured Literacy will end the debate regarding effective instruction. As more teachers become skilled in this approach and more programs align under the same umbrella, we will see several significant changes with far-reaching effects.

Teachers will be empowered to teach diagnostically, monitor student progress, and customize instruction to differentiate and individualize. They will serve as preventative agents in the early identification of dyslexia and other reading challenges.

The widespread adoption of Orton-Gillingham based Structured Literacy can ensure that students are equally exposed to essential foundational literacy skills in a sequential, systematic, and cumulative way. This alleviates the change of students struggling with the wide variations and potential deficits in reading approaches from year to year and program to program. Rather, a smooth transition to more advanced concepts can occur each new year.

Teachers need more suitable training to carry out purposeful instruction in reading, spelling, and writing. The flaws in teacher preparation represent both a misunderstanding of what reading instruction needs and a misconceived idea that any person who can read should teach children to read.

Advocating for Orton-Gillingham

Teacher knowledge is imperative to student success. Supporting teachers by encouraging them to receive professional development in the area of Structured Literacy will dovetail into student success, and using professional learning communities to support the implementation of a literacy program is also beneficial.

Teachers should look for professional development in literacy instruction that is founded in the Science of Reading, utilizes methodologies like Orton-Gillingham, focuses on explicit instruction, and is practical. In other words, teachers should be able to immediately implement what they have learned when they go back into the classroom.

35%

of public school students were at or above Proficient in grade 4 reading *

1 in 4

children in America grow up without learning how to read*

90%

more likely is a child to remain a poor reader at the end of the 4th grade if they are a poor reader at the end of 1st grade*

See Orton-Gillingham as a Part of Structured Literacy Training in Action

Structured Literacy can ensure that students are equally exposed to important foundational literacy skills in a sequential, systematic, and cumulative way.

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