Last Updated on July 16, 2022 by Editorial Team
Orton Gillingham is 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.
Our major audience involves the ones that are struggling in maths, so we are often times questioned if orton gillingham approach is applicable in the mathematics? Do note that there never been an official declaration of orton gillingham for math training. However, several studies conducted in past do suggest that OG is beneficial for maths training.
The main idea behind Orton gillingham approach is the multisensory learning. Embedding the reading skills through multisensory activities strong enough that the learners ultimately find themselves comfortable with the reading. Similarly, multisensory instructions can help in students having trouble in doing maths. It involves use of sight, touch, hearing, and movement to understand what numbers and symbols represent.
Orton gillingham math training steps
A typical orton gillingham math training process involves three steps:
Concrete : –The first step is to let the kids interact with the hands-on materials (concrete). This could be anything. It may be various manipulatives such as beads, lego bricks, dried beans, or numbered boxes.
If you want to look for something outside the classroom, you can consider the cars in parking lot or trees on side path. The idea is to trigger touch senses while doing the activity. Couple of dried beans on a paper in different sets of groups is one of example of concrete step.
Representational : – The next step is to obtain semi-abstract version of the concrete step. Majorly, we draw the concrete hands-on material on the page.
Easily recognizable pictures of the object will do just fine. Drawing makes it easier to understand the connections of our experience with concrete step.
So, taking the example of the concrete step we did with dried beans, we will now make the representation of it on the paper. Just draw the beans or just a representation of it in sets of groups as was in the real case.
Abstract : – After connecting pictures and drawing to the concrete items, we will jump right to the abstract piece of the framework. In this, we will be connecting both concrete items, verbal expression, pictures and drawings to abstract numbers and symbols.
Count the beans drawn and write it down for each set. Putting the addition sign between each group is how we going to represent the abstract version.
Not only the times a particular object is available, but there are different way of approaching this. One such can be the total edges of the box and similar others.
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’,