Hello!
I recently went to training for the Orton Gillingham program and am considering using it for my lowest K-2 reading students. Has anyone out there used this program? Are you seeing results? Any info you’d like to share about using the program - positive or negative? Thanks!
Re: Orton Gillingham program
OG is the granddaddy of structured programs, and structured programs are *the* way to go to teach kids how to really read. See the National Reading Panel report (available here on LD In Depth page) for all the backup you need. It works and you should be amazed how well.
I do not know the latest versions and how they are applied for young kids (the original OG was intended for roughly age 10 and up non-readers) so what I am saying here is just general:
Many structured programs, good as they are at teaching the “how” of reading, don’t have a lot of rich reading experiences. Much as I despise the groundless theorizing of the “whole language” people, they do have a point that kids need lots and lots of books, experiences with books, talking about books, being read to, and so on. *After* your good structured program, do please make sure to have some library time and story time and free reading time. I taught a Grade 1 and 2 class where I had two hours of structured teaching in the morning, forty minutes of math, and then reading and story time and science and art and free reading in the afternoon. It works well; they feed back on each other.
I”ve used it extensively with older students (not the same O-G program), with significant success (despite research and sometimes fervent argument that this kind of structured phonics-based teaching is not effective with older students).
Many of the students I work with now would have, I believe, benefited immensely from a structured reading program in the early grades. GO FOR IT :-) :-) :-)