The Orton-Gillingham approach was first developed by neuropsychiatrist and pathologist Samuel Torrey Orton and Anna Gillingham, an educator and psychologist. It is a highly successful teaching approach designed to help individuals who struggle with reading, writing, spelling, or any combination of the three. Commonly used as an instructional method for children with dyslexia, Orton-Gillingham’s highly individualized techniques and strategies also make it ideal for individuals of all skills and ages.

Orton-Gillingham pioneered the multisensory approach to teaching reading. A typical Orton-Gillingham learning session often involves action-oriented techniques that use auditory, visual, sensory, and kinesthetic elements to help students establish the connection between language and letters or words. By modeling how to best utilize their sight, hearing, touch, and movement to assist in the reading process, students can learn to become more successful readers. 

As a step-by-step teaching approach, Orton-Gillingham puts focus on the individual needs of a student. Hence, teachers and learning specialists who follow this approach design and customize lessons according to a learner’s present skill level. The Orton-Gillingham approach is often used in one-on-one teaching sessions, but it can also be employed during small group instruction called the Slingerland Approach. And while it focuses primarily on teaching literacy skills (reading, spelling, and writing), the approach has also been adapted, due to its multisensory nature and sequential teaching, to teach students who struggle with mathematics. (Know more about multisensory math and our math tutoring services here!)

Our Orton-Gillingham tutors focus on the student’s individual needs and incorporate an Orton-Gillingham approach in order to improve literacy skills. With lessons that are both diagnostic and prescriptive, our instructors monitor the verbal, non-verbal, and written responses within a given session to assess both areas of concern and progress, as well as outline what can be done in future lessons.

By stressing the alphabetic principle (or the relationship between sounds and letters), we are able to help your child to improve their literacy skills step-by-step. Both you and your child will understand what is being learned, why it is important, and how to apply what has been learned to everyday literacy tasks. Our goal is to help your child develop into a confident, independent reader.

Offering Orton-Gillingham and Wilson tutoring, our reading specialists work in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island (Nassau & Suffolk) and travel to your home. They provide assessment and testing, and we work with other professionals, e.g. psychologists, speech language therapists, and learning specialists.

Click this link to find out more about reading instruction to young children following The Five Pillars of Reading and get to know our literacy specialists!