The Orton-Gillingham approach: what it is, what it isn't, and what the research says
In short
Orton-Gillingham is an approach to teaching reading, not a single program. It teaches the sounds and spellings of English explicitly and in a set order, uses seeing, saying, hearing and writing together, and adjusts each lesson to the student. Many structured literacy programs are built on its principles.
Where did the Orton-Gillingham approach come from?
It grew out of work in the 1930s by Samuel Orton, a neurologist who studied children with reading difficulties, and Anna Gillingham, an educator and psychologist. Gillingham and Bessie Stillman later wrote a teaching manual that set out the method. Since then, many programs and training courses have built on those ideas.
Because it's an approach, there's no single Orton-Gillingham curriculum. Different training organizations teach it in slightly different ways, and many commercial programs describe themselves as based on it.
What are the core principles?
- Explicit: every sound, spelling and rule is taught directly, never left for the student to discover.
- Systematic and cumulative: skills follow a planned order, and each new skill builds on earlier ones.
- Multisensory: students see, say, hear and write letters and words in the same lesson.
- Diagnostic: the teacher watches errors closely and adjusts the next lesson.
- Prescriptive: lessons are planned for the individual student or a small group.
- Mastery-based: students practice a skill until it's secure before moving on.
Most of these principles match what the broader research on reading instruction supports. The multisensory part is the one with the least direct evidence, as explained below.
What does an Orton-Gillingham style lesson look like?
A typical lesson is one-on-one or with a small group and lasts 45 to 60 minutes. It moves through short parts in a familiar order.
| Part | What happens |
|---|---|
| Sound card review | Student says sounds for known letters and spellings |
| Spelling review | Teacher says sounds, student writes the spellings |
| New concept | Teacher introduces a new sound, spelling or rule |
| Word reading | Student reads words and phrases with known patterns |
| Spelling and dictation | Student spells words and writes a dictated sentence |
| Irregular words | Student learns a few common words with unusual spellings |
| Text reading | Student reads a controlled passage aloud |
A common multisensory step is tracing or writing a letter while saying its name and sound. Some teachers use sand trays, textured surfaces or arm tapping for syllables.
What does the research say about Orton-Gillingham?
The evidence for Orton-Gillingham programs as a group is thinner than many people expect. A 2010 What Works Clearinghouse review of unbranded Orton-Gillingham strategies found no studies that met its standards. A 2021 meta-analysis by Stevens and colleagues found a positive average effect that wasn't large enough to rule out chance, partly because many of the studies were small.
That doesn't mean the approach doesn't work. It means the specific package hasn't been tested as well as its reputation suggests. The principles it shares with structured literacy, such as explicit and systematic phonics, phonemic awareness and lots of practice, have strong support from a large body of research.
How is Orton-Gillingham related to structured literacy?
Structured literacy is the broader term the International Dyslexia Association uses for explicit, systematic teaching of phonology, sound-symbol links, syllables, morphology, syntax and meaning. Orton-Gillingham is one of the approaches that falls under that umbrella.
In practice, a school that says it uses structured literacy may use an Orton-Gillingham based program, a different systematic phonics program, or its own sequence. What matters is whether the teaching is explicit, sequenced and responsive to the data.
Is Orton-Gillingham only for dyslexia?
It was designed for students with dyslexia, and it's most often used with them in tutoring and special education. But its core elements help most beginning and struggling readers. Many classroom phonics programs use the same ideas, just in a less individualized form for larger groups.
What should parents ask a tutor who uses it?
- What training do you have, and how many supervised hours did it include?
- How do you decide where to start with my child?
- How will you measure progress, and how often will you share it?
- How much of each session is spent reading and spelling real words and text?
- What will you change if my child isn't making progress?
- Parent
- How will I know it's working?
- Teacher
- I'll check your child's reading on a short passage every two weeks and show you the graph. If the line isn't climbing after six to eight weeks, I'll change something and tell you what.
Who can teach with the Orton-Gillingham approach?
Anyone can use its principles, but formal training varies a lot. Some courses are a weekend workshop; others require dozens of hours of coursework plus a supervised practicum with real students over many months. The supervised practice is what builds the skill of reading a student's errors and planning the next lesson from them.
Ask about training, but also ask to see progress data from past students. A tutor who measures and shares progress is more useful than one with an impressive certificate and no graphs.
What are the drawbacks of the approach?
Cost and pace are the common complaints. One-on-one tutoring several times a week is expensive, and a strict mastery approach can move slowly for students who could handle more. Some programs also spend a long time on multisensory routines that take minutes away from reading actual words and text.
Good tutors manage these limits. They move quickly through patterns a student already knows, keep multisensory steps short, and make sure every session includes reading connected text.