No Stress Over Accenting Rules

Accenting is something that can be taught early in Orton Gillingham, but the advanced rules are for advanced decoding and fall much later in the OG scope and sequence. Accenting is to aid in pronouncing words correctly – that’s the goal. If a student looks a word up in a dictionary (online these days) and sees an accent mark, they will know how to use that accent mark to pronounce the word. Early Accenting These first, simple accenting exercises are to introduce accenting. Say it both ways. The best way to teach early accenting is to have the student say the word both ways and...

REVLOC Game Online, Fun with Syllable Division

Syllable labeling and division is a major foundation of the Orton Gillingham approach. I posted, April 2020, a REVLOC game with a printout that you could cut out and have students sort syllables. Now, with many kids learning from home, I created a sorting game online. https://www.flippity.net/ma.php?k=1Fb5Sk5wEpfq4MPN-HpSjPpFaYggAUm1aDKEpaaoyAWM How To Play The colored blocks (at the bottom of the board) are the REVLOC + Misc. for each grid square. A student will need to drag those REVLOC letters to the top of each square in the grid. They can then drag each syllable to the appropriate square in REVLOC. If you have...

Scope and Sequence Is the Ship, You Are the Captain

A scope and sequence is a plan – the teaching of a subject (the scope) in a specific sequence.  Many subjects have scope and sequence plans. Orton Gillingham is no different – it is an extensive subject that needs to be broken down into bites for easy digestion if someone is going to teach it (and learn it). There are different scope and sequences in Orton Gillingham. The scope and sequence that is used to teach a course to those who will teach or tutor OG is different than the scope and sequence a teacher or tutor will use to...

Feel the Flow with Fluency Stories

Fluency stories are important in all phonics and reading programs, not just Orton Gillingham, and if you are an educator reading this post, I don’t need to tell you all the stats and reasons. I would like to say that in Orton Gillingham I love to use fluency stories to reinforce rules, introduce new words, and check progress on concepts, and of course reading fluency. In fluency stories, you’ll find that not all words are easy for the reader. Don’t expect a student to have expression and automaticity in the first pass of a story, or even the second, and maybe...

You’re in Possession of Orton Gillingham Possessive Rules

Possessive rules can be easy, but can also get a little tricky when we move beyond just adding ‘s. Possessive Rules are all about ownership and can be narrowed down to a couple of categories: singular and plural. Singular Possessive Rule Singular Possessive Rule is to show ownership for a singular owner, add ‘s to the singular form of the noun. For example: the eyes of my sister would become my sister’s eyes. Practice! Sample 1: The pony’s tail is fluffy. Ask the student: Who owns something? (the pony), What is the possessive of the pony? (pony’s), What does the pony own? (its tail) Sample 2: The book’s...

Stores of Plural Rules

Without even thinking, we turn many singular words plural in our language. I might go to the grocery store, or the first store didn’t have what I needed, so I went to grocery stores. In many cases, like the word store, we just add an s and move on. But what if it’s not that simple? Orton Gillingham makes learning much easier by giving us rules. Luckily, there are the following plural rules to help out. Photo by Kaique Rocha on Pexels.com In dividing plural rules, we have five categories. CH, SH, S, X, Z Plural Rule CH, SH, S, X, Z Plural...

A Lion or a Poem: Dividing Vowel Team Words

In dividing words with vowel teams in Orton Gillingham there are two types: Lion Words Lion Words. In Lion words there will be a reversal of vowel teams. For example, io as in lion, rather than oi as in oil. Another example is ia as in dial, rather than ai as in rain. When a student sees the reversal, it means, in most cases, the team will be divided (split up) and the first vowel will be long. ? In Lion Words, these are vowels that are together, but they are not vowel teams and you would never teach this concept...

Speech Pathology in OG

Speech pathology is important in creating sounds, and this is important in Orton Gillingham because the method relies on teaching in a three-prong approach – auditory, kinesthetic and visual. For a learner with no speech issues, I think the most taught is that there is such a thing a voiced and unvoiced. Let them put their hand on their throat and feel the difference when saying “th” as the word mother versus the word thumb. Mother is voiced th, and thumb is unvoiced. Same th, but sounds differently when one is voiced and unvoiced. This can help feel the letters...

REVLOC Syllable Sorting Game

REVLOC Sorting Cutout If you want to do something with a student that feels like a game, sorting syllables is a fun way to get going. There aren’t many rules. I have attached a cutout to this post for download. You can print it, cut it out and get started. You can also make more syllables and keep going once your student has conquered these. First, put REVLOC and “other” lined across the top. If your student is only capable of Open and Closed then you can put the O and C at the top and add more to the line...

What’s In a Plan

With so many kids having to learn from home these days, you may be wondering what a lesson plan in Orton Gillingham looks like. A lesson can be between 45 minutes to an hour. Lessons consist of Drills, Letter Formation, Concepts, Dictation, and Reading. Much more detail on a lesson to come… There is also something in Orton Gillingham called a Scope and Sequence – the order in which the letters and concepts are taught. The thing about lessons is that they build upon one another, so I can’t give you a lesson plan and you just go use it (without creating a whole book...