Orton-Gillingham in Small Groups: Working Magic Daily!

Last summer I was accepted into Virginia's pilot program for using Orton-Gillingham in the school setting. After spending 4 days in what felt like a crash course for OG, I was ready to take all I learned into my interventions. At least I thought I was ready! All year I worked to make multi-sensory methods happen seamlessly in my interventions every single day.

Teaching students with the Orton-Gillingham method helps students learn and use phonics skills to decode words. Small group instruction with OG can help all students succeed with reading every day.

The state gave me all the materials I would need to help me get started. I spent days laminating and cutting to prepare for the two third grade groups I would start out with. But that was the beginning of a lot of work and learning!

Timing is everything in the OG lessons I conduct. It has to keep moving and be fast-paced to ensure we get everything in. With only 30 minutes a day I had to plan well and keep it fast and exciting at the same time. I split the 45 minute lessons into two days. Here's what it looks like...

Day 1

We spent our first day on review of former material and a quick introduction of new material. We read through drill cards and spell sounds and words we already have learned. There are several ways we do this. The sounds are done together, or I show cards to individual students.

I tried lots of different ways to read the word cards. Sometimes we just read the cards as I flashed them.

Sometimes we passed the cards around and read them.

Other times I showed one card at a time to each student.

But their favorite was the Chromebook. I was able to obtain 4 Chromebooks for my students to use. With those, I was able to create customized lists for each child to read through their Google account. This worked great for 3rd graders, but it was a lot of work just getting them each logged into their accounts. Once they did, I walked around behind them and listened in. Each student had words that they need work with.

Once we finished reading words with our studied features, we practiced spelling words with the Simultaneous Oral Spelling (SOS) method. At this point, I called out a word, they repeated it back to me, finger-spelled it and then said each letter as they wrote the words. This was hard because they didn't like to copy off of others, so they learned very quickly to whisper!

After reading and spelling review words, I was able to introduce the new feature. They read the new words and spelled the new words with that feature. And that was all we could do for Day 1.

It was quick and flew by quickly. We were all exhausted by the end of the session!

Day 2

We started out with our alphabet and quick review of the new feature we had learned the day before. This is where we got out our OG notebook and "coded" our features. They were able to choose between a marker or highlighter color of their choice. Giving them choice was key.

Since we had a small group, I created these OG notebook pages, so I didn't have to spend time writing words in 10 different notebooks. You can find those here in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
We also did our Trace, Copy, Cover, Avert at this time. They love this and think it is so fun! For some reason, they liked to circle their best one they did with their eyes closed.

Then we did our oral reading. I used a variety of books and passages that would help them, especially with their features we had been working. When able, I allowed them to mark in their books the words with the features we had studied. This was also my opportunity to work on high frequency words. This time gave me a chance to listen to them read and focus on comprehension skills.

Through trial and error, I was able to find ways to make OG work for my small group. Each day I learned something new and tried different ways to make it all seamless.

Tune in later this summer as I give tips on how I managed the planning, their notebooks, and made it all a lot more fun!

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