The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the use of simultaneous multisensory structured language instruction promoted better letter name and sound production, word reading, and word spelling for second grade children with typical development (N = 6) or with dyslexia (N = 5) than structured language instruction alone. The use of…

Matching phonemes (speech sounds) to graphemes (letters and letter combinations) is an important aspect of decoding (translating print to speech) and encoding (translating speech to print). Yet, many teacher candidates do not receive explicit training in phoneme-grapheme correspondence. Difficulty with accurate phoneme production and/or lack of…

A group of 30 nonreading kindergarten children who received 7 weeks of instruction in phoneme segmentation and letter names/sounds were assessed on segmentation and reading measures. They outperformed a language activities group, which received instruction in letter names/sounds and additional language activities, and a group receiving no…

This biographical article about Anna Gillingham describes her holistic technique for teaching children with specific language disabilities to read, using a sequential, graphemic-phonemic multisensory program. The dedication she exhibited in training teachers to use her remedial techniques is also explored. (JDD)

A discussion-oriented, direct approach to teaching decoding and spelling based on word origin and structure is proposed. The instruction leads students to a comparison and contrast of letter-sound correspondences, syllable patterns, and morpheme patterns in English words of Anglo-Saxon, Romance, and Greek origin. (Author/JDD)

Discussion of the teaching of writing, spelling, and reading using code-based literacy methods, such as Orton-Gillingham examines the cognitive challenge of the transition from spoken to graphic word and then reviews new research findings, such as the letter as model for sound variation, ease of spelling the low vowel, and the creation of word…

Spelling pronunciations are hypothesized to be helpful in building up relatively stable phonologically underpinned orthographic representations, particularly for learning words with irregular phoneme-grapheme correspondences. In a four-week computer-based training, the efficacy of spelling pronunciations and previewing the spelling patterns on…

Twenty-four first-graders who were taught reading skills using the "Language Basics: Elementary" program, which incorporates the Orton-Gillingham-based Alphabetic Phonics Method, made statistically significant gains in phonological awareness, decoding, and reading comprehension. Thirty-two controls taught with the Houghton-Mifflin Basal…

This study examined the word-structure knowledge of novice teachers and the progress of children tutored by a subgroup of the teachers. Teachers' word-structure knowledge was assessed using three tasks: graphophonemic segmentation, classification of pseudowords by syllable type, and classification of real words as phonetically regular or…