Dyslexia and the Orton-Gillingham Approach

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Dyslexia is a neurobiological learning disorder characterized by difficulty reading and spelling in individuals who are receiving adequate classroom instruction and do not have cognitive deficits.

Individuals with dyslexia may have difficulty:

  • Reading, spelling, and writing

  • Learning the names and sounds of letters

  • Making sense of unfamiliar words

  • Attending to tasks and following directions

  • Sequencing

  • Managing frustration

  • Copying written language

  • With math

  • Recognizing letters that look the same and writing letters the “right way”

The Orton-Gillingham Approach was developed by Samuel Torrey Orton (1879-1948), a neuropsychiatrist, and Anna Gillingham (1878-1963), an educator and psychologist, to help struggling readers by explicitly teaching them the relationship between letters and sounds.

The OG Approach—explained in detail on our services page—is diagnostic and prescriptive, structured, direct and explicit, multi-sensory and systematic, and sequential.