Spelling for the Elementary Student

Orton was born in 1879 and lived until 1948.

He was the first to study the dyslexic.

He and his wife June Lyday Orton, 1898 – 1977, were the most important individuals in the history of dyslexia.

With Bessie Stillman, Gillingham organized Orton’s principles into a successful remedial reading training system based on visual-auditory-kinesthetic linkages, a multisensory approach to alphabetic phonics that came to be known as “Orton-Gillingham.”

Orton – Gillingham

· A system of spelling based on logic and discovery that works for all students, not only your dyslexic students.

· A system based on visual-auditory-kinesthetic linkages,

· A multisensory approach to alphabetic phonics that came to be known as “Orton-Gillingham”.

What is alike Between Montessori and Orton Gillingham?

· Move from the known to the unknown

· Simple to Complex

· Analysis and Synthesis

· Cognitive

· Multisensory

· Sequential

· Success built in

· Scientific or logical

· Three period lesson

· Repetition

· Order

Decode and Encode Language Symbols

Teach Children in a way that they can learn.

Direct Teaching and Specific ways to decode and encode language symbols make it possible for some to read and write.

Auditory training in discrimination and sequencing builds a foundation for analyzing sounds in words.

Rules for adding suffixes and prefixes help them to move on to saying, reading and spelling polysyllabic words.

Exceptions to the Rules

• Don’t teach exceptions when you are teaching rules.

• Just teach the rules.

• Exceptions can be mentioned when you come across them in the reading experience.

• a,e,i,o,u, and sometimes y

Sometimes y; is y a vowel? Yes or no.

If it is when is it?

This was a confusing thing taught back in the old days.

• Be clear in your explanations

• a,e,i,o,u and y

• Y is a vowel when it is not at the beginning of a word. How simple is that?

To bring knowledge of language to Consciousness – “

• Orton – Gillingham with its emphasis on multisensory learning may be so broad in its intervention

• It may be capable of overcoming a variety of deficiencies.

• Multisensory drill on letter shapes configuration

• reinforced by verbal description drill and repetition of grapheme - phoneme associations;

• Use of logic and linguistic analysis to compensate for poor memory for phonetic detail and for the lack of intuitive understanding of language.

• There may be here sufficient diversity to meet any problem.

•

Training in order to process the stimuli used to read include specific ways to look at the following:

· the letter - the smallest unit of the language

• syllables and word parts – groups of letters
• words (vocabulary – understanding)
• strings of words (phrases, sentences)
• How these relate (syntax).
• Rules for adding suffixes and prefixes help them to move on to saying, reading and spelling polysyllabic words.

Phonemes are the smallest units of spoken language, not written language

Grapheme: the unit or units of a writing system that represent a single phoneme

Phonogram: character or symbol used to represent a word, syllable, or phoneme, (speech sound) / without reference to meaning

Aspirated “spun”

shwa “about”

v Phonemic Segmentation: What sounds do you hear in the word hot? What’s the last sound in the word map

v Phoneme Deletion: What word would be left if the /k/ sound were taken away from cat?

v Phoneme Matching:

Do pen and pipe start with the same sound?

v Phoneme Counting: How many sounds do you hear?

v Phoneme Substitution: What word would you have if you changed the /h/ in hot to /p/?

v Blending: What word would you have if you put these sounds together? /s/ /a/ /t/

v Rhyming: Tell me as many words as you can that rhyme with the word eat.

What Do We Teach?

Types of Syllables

Spelling rules

v Consonants - one sound

b c d f g h j k l m n p r s t v w x y z

v Short vowels a e i o u y

v Digraphs –

Ch, sh, th, th, wh, ph, qu

v Blends S blends

L Blends R blends

T Blends W Blends

v Affix

v Prefix

v Suffix

v SOS spelling

syllable division

cat/nip rec/ord

sum/mer re/cord ro/bot

hor/net

rep/tile

cir/cle

beat/nic

the three sounds of ed

the three sounds of y

tion, sion

all, push, mother

Generalizations

v ce, ci, cy

v ge, gi,gy

v k, ck

v ch, tch

v ge, dge

v ff, ll, ss

· It has been clearly demonstrated that the most efficient way to learn a generalization is through direct instruction, and that incidental learning is slower and more uncertain.

· One of the main reasons for learning how to read, is to be able to learn from our predecessors without having to make their mistakes, it is paradoxical that when it comes to learning how to read, most teachers want the

beginner to reinvent the wheel.

-Steven Rosenberg

Newsletter of the New York Branch of the Orton Dyslexia Society August 1985

· O-G teachers teach letter – sound correspondences directly.
“The fact that English is not a perfectly phonetic language is another argument for the direct instruction of the alphabetic principle.

· ”Nevertheless, English is a phonetic language, and beginners should not be introduced to literacy through a method, the whole word method, that treats English as if it were a logography like Chinese, Reading a Chinese newspaper has been likened to memorizing 4,000 telephone numbers.

• In addition the rules for English spelling are very logical. For instance, although the spellings of the words “same”, “back”, “ chop”, and “stepping” are not perfectly phonetic they are not haphazard, but in fact follow easily explainable rules.

• In perfectly phonetic languages each written word is an exact visual model of its sound structure, and so the letter-sound relationships can be inferred more easily than in English.

• …. So in fact the O-G approach, which teaches the principle underlying the alphabetical system of writing and the rules of English spelling, is a cognitive approach.

Spelling Rules and Generalizations

• There are rules that work most of the time.

• There are generalizations that work some of the time.

• The logical method allows the best guess to be made. It is usually a safe bet.

The Doubling Rule (for adding suffixes)

Does the word have one vowel?

Does the word end in one consonant?

Does the suffix begin with a vowel?

Did I get three yes answers?

If I get three yes answers then I double the final consonant before adding the suffix

big + est = biggest

run + er = runner

skip + ing= skipping

thin + ly = thinly

big + ness = bigness

rest + ful = restful

frost + ed = frosted

fail + ing = failing

strict + ly = strictly

good +ness = goodness

steam+ ing = steaming

fright+en=frighten

The Silent e Rule (for adding suffixes)

Drop the e when adding a vowel suffix

Keep the e when adding a consonant suffix.

base +ment = basement

bite + ing = biting

care + less=careless

dive + ing=diving

fame + ous= famous

The Y Rule (for adding suffixes)

Look at the letter that comes before the y

The y changes to I when the letter before the y is a consonant.

The y stays the same when the letter before the y is a vowel

pray + er = prayer

lazy + ness =laziness

lucky + est = luckiest

joy + ful = joyful

buy + er = buyer

The Generalizations

• ce, ci, cy

• ge, gi, gy

• k,ck

• ch, tch

• ge, dge

• The ff, ll, ss rule

Types of Syllables

• closed syllables -cat

• open syllables -no

• r controlled syllables -car

• diphthong syllables -beat

• silent e syllables -tile

• consonant le syllables –ble, cle,tle…

Syllable Division

• closed syllables -cat/nip

• open syllables -ro/bot

• r controlled syllables -hor/net sum/mer

• diphthong syllables -beat/nic

• silent e syllables -rep/tile

• consonant le syllables -cir/cle

What’s the system?

• Establish routine

• A procedure for all their spelling

• Set up the spelling notebook for routine dictation and recording

• Personal spelling dictionary for words they have recurring problems with

· Children need to categorize

• Don’t stuff their heads with information they don’t need to know;

mule, June

• Teach rules they can count on

• No exceptions until they really know the rule

• As soon as you each something complicated that’s the thing they will do the most.

• Selective Drill

• Visual to the oral association

• We don’t teach spelling in order for the children to write words on a list.

• We use words they know for dictation. If you use a word in dictation that is unknown, write it down for the student to copy.

• We teach spelling so that children can communicate on paper.

• It is important to move on to sentences in dictation.

• Hold the students responsible for what they know.

• “It is not fair to a child to let him get away with less than he is capable of doing” Anna Gillingham

• Teach phonograms according to what they are trying to read.

• Hold them responsible for what you have taught.

• Tell them readily what you have not taught.

• Auditory Segmentation (How many sounds do you hear?)

• Phonemic segmentation (Hear the sounds in words)

• Rules and Generalizations

• S.O.S.

• Simultaneous Oral Spelling

• Place Sounds

• Locate Physically

• Naming letters

• Naming letters as they write

• Teacher says the word and child repeats it.

• No voice clutter.

• Look pleased when child repeats the word correctly.

• Reading goes along faster than spelling

• They have to hear it to be able to spell it

• As soon as a child knows more than one way to spell a sound it is not appropriate to expect him to know when to use the way unless he’s had a generalization about it.

• ……Current research indicates that although context does

facilitate decoding for readers of all levels of ability, it is a strategy relied upon more by inefficient readers than by competent readers. Context is used as a compensatory strategy relied upon more by inefficient readers than by competent readers. However, readers have a limited capacity for processing information. If some of the capacity is devoted to decoding by use of context, less capacity remains for comprehension. Research shows that what separates good comprehenders from poor comprehnders is not their ability to use context, but their ability to decode automatically.

• Teaching automatic decoding is what O-G is all about.

• It is certainly true, as critics of O-G claim, that it is unnecessary to recode the visual representation of a word into speech in order for comprehension to take place. However, it is doubtful that good readers bypass the phonological stage because, as much research has demonstrated, the most efficient way of keeping information in short term memory is by converting the information into a speech like code. Certainly, comprehension cannot take place efficiently if information cannot be taken into short term memory so that it can be combined with new incoming information. Also if written text is not recoded to speech, such aids to language comprehension as pitch, intonation and stress are lost. Thus by encouraging recoding to speech, O-G promotes, rather than impedes, comprehension.

-Steven Rosenberg

Newsletter of the New York Branch

of the Orton Dyslexia Society August 1985

• In addition to the above mentioned advantages, O-G, unlike the strictly visual whole word approach, engages all of the learner’s senses by integrating reading with spelling and writing… This insures that the learner’s most efficient way of getting information is employed at the same time that the weaker modalities are being strengthened.

• Also., unlike most approaches to language learning, O-G takes student one step at a time, so that new learning is built on a solid foundation of old learning.

• Finally, and maybe most importantly, O-G motivates students because by being synthetic-analytic, scientific, cognitive, multisensory, and sequential, it ensures success.

- Steven Rosenberg

Newsletter of the New York Branch of the Orton

Dyslexia Society August 1985