Last Updated on August 3, 2020 by Editorial Team
Orton Gillingham is widely regarded teaching approach designed for struggling readers, such as in case of dyslexia. Named after reading and language pioneers, Samuel Torrey Orton (1879-1948) and Anna Gillingham (1878-1963) , Orton Gillingham approach focuses on teaching connections between letters and sounds. It also uses multisensory approach to teach reading which involves using visualization, hearing, touch and movement to form connection. Other than that, it recognizes learning needs of an individual student as the pace, learning style, topic strength varies student to student.
An important component of Orton Gillingham approach is the practice of red words. For those unaware, ‘Red Words’ are the non-phonetic words, meaning that they don’t follow the usual phonics rules. Red words are generally called ‘Sight Words’. Instead of stopping to decode these words, students are taught to recognize them immediately “by sight,”
Red words, collectively, make up more than 50% of the content a young learner may encounter while reading. Practicing to recognize these words helps in building fluency and speed in reading. Students having learning disorders like dyslexia, generally struggles in memorizing these words with conventional methods. Adapting a multi sensory practice is a good start to get these into the minds of little learners. But first, we got to make ourselves aware of what exactly are these red words. So, here is the list of 100 Orton Gillingham Red Words for practice.
Download the pdf print from here.
To practice these words effectively, multi sensory practice should be a part of the routine. There are ample ways to incorporate this practice. Finger tracing is one such common activity. Student is asked to trace letters (Orton Gillingham Red Words) he/she wrote on the pad, notebook, board or anything he/she comfortable with. While tracing, Student has to to spell the word simultaneously as well. When finished, slide the finger under the word while reading the word. 4-5 iterations of this exercise is recommended. Same practice can be done in several variations to keep the interest of the students. Students can try writing the words on sand or in a tray of shaving cream.
An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’,