Greetings, this is The Reading Instruction Show.
As always, I am your host, Dr. Andy Johnson.
The title of today's podcast is called Orton
Gillingham, full colon, Behind the Pretty Words.
So let's see if we can learn something today.
Unpacking Orton Gillingham. Orton Gillingham
is an approach to teaching reading that is, quote,
multisensory, sequential, incremental, cumulative,
individualized, phonics -based, and explicit,
so said Ripple 2020. A recent article in the
Reading League Journal said that, quote, many
of the defining features of OG approach are supported
by extensive scientific research, including direct
and explicit instruction with scaffolding, structured
and sequential instruction, and diagnostic and
prescriptive instruction, Austrian et al 2024.
Also, the Orton -Gillingham website described
the approach as, quote, direct, explicit, multi
-century, structured, sequential, diagnostic,
and prescriptive. Now if the number of superlative
adjectives used to describe a thing determine
its effectiveness, then by all means Orton Gillingham
would be very effective. But what exactly do
all these pretty, pretty words mean? Let's do
a little unpacker right in here. Direct instruction.
Yes, direct and explicit instruction is supported
by extensive scientific research. Absolutely.
Everybody in the world knows that. They would
agree that direct instruction is an important
part of reading instruction. Old language teachers
use direct instruction. Balanced literacy teachers
use direct instruction. And I'm sure if penguins
could be trained to teach reading, they too would
use direct instruction. Direct instruction is
a pedagogical strategy consisting of a, explicit
input, b, modeling or demonstration, c, guided
practice with a gradual release of responsibility
called scaffolding, and d, independent practice.
Direct instruction. is an effective teaching
strategy for the initial learning of any kind,
absolutely. But it's a strategy that every teacher
should have in their teaching toolbox. It's basic
teaching 101. It has never been a question of
if direct instruction should be used in early
reading instruction. It's always been a question
of how or how much direct instruction should
be used. For the science of reading people, it's
always been much. For balanced literacy practitioners,
it's always been as much as needed. Scaffolding.
Educational scaffolding is any kind of support
used with initial learning. This initial support
is followed by a gradual release of teacher responsibility
as students become more adept with what's being
learned. Scaffolding is a part of guided practice
used in direct instruction. However, it's also
used to provide support with any type of learning.
Everybody believes that scaffolding is an important
thing. This is not something new or unique. This
is not something that needs extensive scientific
research to determine its effectiveness. Again,
basic teaching 101. What about structured and
sequential instruction? Well, according to the
International Dyslexia Association, structured
instruction for reading includes these six elements,
phonology, sound symbol association, syllable
instruction, morphology, syntax, and semantics.
Again, you'd get little argument from anyone
in the field of literacy that these elements
should not be part of initial reading instruction.
But what's interesting here is that each of the
three queuing systems are used here. Hmm. Hmm.
Does the International Dyslexia Association support
the three queuing systems? Hmm. Perhaps there's
hope for this organization. And why am I dragging
the International Dyslexia Association into the
mix here? It's because of their strong link to
Orton Gillingham. This organization was originally
called the Orton Society. In 1982, it changed
its name to the Orton Dyslexia Society. And in
1997, it changed its name to the International
Dyslexia Association. IDA. But more importantly,
in 2014, they were the ones who came up with
the term structured literacy, from which structured
instruction is derived. And the quiet part was
said out loud when they stated the purpose of
the term was to, quote, unify and sell what we
do, unquote. It's all about marketing, you see.
Now, according to the IDA, structured instruction
is, quote, systematic and cumulative. Now let's
pause a minute to look at the accumulation of
all the important sounding words used so far.
Structured, systematic, scientific, diagnostic,
prescriptive, direct. explicit, extensive, sequential,
cumulative, logical order. How could anybody
be against these things? But what exactly do
they mean? Now if you want to have a good time,
ask your Science of Reading friends or your IDA
and Orton Gillingham friends. to define these
11 terms and then record their responses. You'll
notice quite a bit of variation in the responses
as well as a lot of squirming. The IDA says,
quote, systematic means that the organization
of material follows the logical order of the
language. More words thrown about. What is the
logical order of language. Is there an illogical
order? According to the IDA, the logical order,
quote, must begin with the easiest and most basic
concepts and progress methodically to more difficult
concepts and elements, unquote. To which I say,
brilliant! But again, this is Basic Teaching
101. Good teachers, always start with easy or
simple things and progress to more difficult
or complex things as students are ready. However,
what's easiest and most basic in reading is based
on one's experience with language. Reading things
that make sense and using words and concepts
from children's experience is much easier. than
decoding lists of words and nonsense words in
isolation, and reading decodable books with artificial
sentences like nan and pap sat on a pan. Cumulative
means that each new thing builds on the last
thing, and again, basic teaching 101. Good teachers
always make connections to or build upon previous
learning. This is basic constructivist learning
theory. This also reflects Bruner's learning
theory that calls for skills and concepts to
be taught in their simplest form first to become
a platform for more complex skills and concepts
later on. But what about sequential instruction?
What's the sequence? And who decided that the
sequence was to be a sequence? Hence, you get
things like a scope and sequence chart. Now these
can be useful in providing a general sense of
the kinds of things you might teach early on,
as well as the types of letter patterns you might
ask students to notice, However, scope and sequence
charts are not reliable enough to be used in
a prescriptive fashion. They should never become
the roadmap to instruction. However, the giant
I -thinkism behind structured instruction is
that if children just put all the teeny tiny
parts of a scope and sequence chart together
in a logical order, they'll be able to read.
And that's just playing cookie talk. Alright,
diagnostic and prescriptive instruction. An effective
diagnosis of any kind first determines if there
is a problem and then identifies the cause of
the problem. According to the IDA, International
Dyslexia Association, diagnostic and prescriptive
instruction uses, quote, careful and continuous
assessment that is both formal and informal,
unquote. Everybody agrees that careful and continuous
assessment is important. Nobody wants careless
and discontinuous assessment. However, a proper
diagnosis of reading occurs apart from instruction
and focuses on three deficit areas, word recognition,
fluency, and comprehension. And I have yet to
find a more effective diagnostic instrument than
a diagnostic reading assessment sometimes called
an informal reading inventory. But diagnostic
instruction uses assessments within the context
of instruction. The proper term for this is progress
monitoring. Effective reading instruction of
any kind has always included pragmatic measures
to use for progress monitoring. Prescriptive
instruction is an instructional plan based on
the diagnosis. Now struggling readers are not
all the same. Each has different strength and
deficit areas. Since each deficit area is addressed
differently, the instruction prescribed for each
student should be different. This points to the
importance of a valid diagnostic measure specifically
addressing the three deficit areas, word recognition,
fluency, and or comprehension. Now this is much
different from the one -size -fits -all instruction
used in Orton -Gillingham and other reading products.
Here the same reading subskills are prescribed
in the same order in the same way. High -ability
readers go a little faster and are a little ahead.
Struggling readers go a little slower and are
a little behind. But the same prescription is
used with everybody. This instruction could hardly
be said to be prescriptive. And multi -sensory.
Ah! Multisensory instruction is said to be the
magic ingredient in Orton -Gillingham. Multisensory!
This simply means visual, auditory, and kinesthetic
modalities are used when teaching. In other words,
as children are learning, they see things, they
hear things, and they do things. This is nothing
new or magical. It's not unique to Orton -Gillingham.
It's called multimodal instruction, and elementary
teachers have been using various forms of it
for decades. So the research, what about the
research that, quote, proves, unquote, the effectiveness
of Orton -Gillingham? Well, despite the claims
of being heavily research -based, it's simply
not. The research used to support the use of
Orton Gillingham often measures students' progress
using pseudo -reading or non -reading tasks.
It uses measures of questionable validity. It
does not use comparison groups. It's derived
from unpublished master's or doctoral theses.
Is a study put out by organizations that have
a vested interest in certain outcomes or makes
claims of superiority without controlling for
covariates such as gender, socioeconomic status,
ethnicity, verbal IQ, or initial reading skills?
The problem with Orton Gillingham and similar
for -profit products, Lindemude, Whilson, Language
Training, Barton Systems, etc., is that they
try to reduce teaching to an algorithm. An algorithm
is a formula for solving problems in which you
follow a step -by -step set of procedures with
fidelity, to achieve a specific outcome. In other
words, by correctly following a prescribed set
of steps in a specific order, you will be led
to a predetermined solution. Algorithms are useful
in mathematics and computer science for calculation,
data processing, and automatic reasoning. But
for teaching, not so much. However, Orton Gillingham
would have you believe that if the teaching algorithm
is followed explicitly, the teacher can be assured
that students will learn to read. And if the
algorithm doesn't work, you run them through
the algorithm again and again and again. What
these algorithmic programs offer is a false sense
of certainty. Despite Despite all the important
sounding words thrown about about the long -term
effectiveness of these direct, explicit, multi
-sensory, structured, sequential, diagnostic,
and prescriptive instructional products, their
effectiveness is simply not evident. This has
been The Reading Instruction Show. I'm your host,
Dr. Andy Johnson.