Glossary · Teaching and intervention
What is multisensory instruction?
Definition
Multisensory instruction teaches reading and spelling through more than one sense at once, such as saying a sound while writing its letter or tapping sounds while spelling.
A student might trace a letter in sand while saying its sound, tap a finger for each sound in a word, or build words with tiles while saying each sound. The idea is to link what the student sees, hears, says and does.
Multisensory methods are a long tradition in teaching students with dyslexia. Research on the multisensory part alone is mixed; it's hard to separate from the explicit, systematic teaching it usually comes with. What's clear is that the activities make practice active and keep a student's attention on sounds and letters.
Keep the movement tied to the skill. Tapping each sound helps segmenting. Jumping on a letter mat helps mostly with getting wiggles out.
In a lesson
Learning th, the student says /th/ while writing it on a whiteboard three times, then taps the sounds in thin and moth and writes each word.
Examples
Each word with its spelling units, one per sound.
- thingth·i·ng
- thanth·a·n
- thusth·u·s
Words come from our lexicon, checked against a pronouncing dictionary. Words a student sees in our assessments are left out.
Why does this matter for the record?
Note which supports a student uses, such as tapping or tiles, and when they stop needing them. Fading the support is progress worth recording.
Rate each skill as you teach it
Needs support, Developing, Secure. The rating schedules the review and builds the report.