Convince a colleague that structured literacy is the way to go

[Kanin]

3 hours ago, PeterPan said:

Did you see the comments on SpellTalk that structured literacy is becoming the term to allow them to move away from calling it OG and thus actually doing OG? It's true we need full-package, but I thought that was really telling. They were suggesting that eventually structured literacy as a term will undo the emphasis on strong explicit decoding instruction. I guess it should have been no shock.

I didn't see that... I can see how that would happen, though. OG suggests a very specific methodology.... and "structured literacy" could probably be code for a lot of less-good "structured" interventions... just liked with "balanced" literacy - argh!

[MistyMountain]

OG is not the be all end all and that is not what the research shows anyway. The research definitely shows that synthetic phonics instruction is superior but not that the only means of doing it is OG or that OG is the best method or the only method that is effective. What is clear from the research too is that kids that start with site words will develop habits that are harder to fix and it takes much longer to remediate in older children that were pre taught. Plus there are all different kinds of methods that are labeled OG that are very different. I like having more options then just OG. 

Edited February 13, 2019 by MistyMountain

[Storygirl]

 MistyMountain, can you cite some of the research you mention?

[Lecka]

I just looked at a reading program I have used a level of.  It doesn’t follow the same sequence as a lot of OG programs I have seen:  it introduces “VCE” on the early side compared to many.  

It says “comprehensive, multisensory, explicit.”  

Another program that is “based on OG principles” also introduces “VCE” on the earlier side.

Anyway, I think there are a lot of components that are known to be good.  But then they don’t all follow the order where “VCE” is held off until after 2-syllable words.  

Anyway, I suspect there is a lot of pickiness about exactly what it takes to be considered OG, and then how much other programs can use the very known effective components, but enough is different it wouldn’t be called OG.

Or they even don’t want to label it as OG for some reason (they want to seem new and different, or align to some current buzzword, or something).  

Anyway I see this a huge amount with autism therapy.  There are some basic things that many different approaches are doing.  But they want to give things different names and say “we aren’t doing the same thing.”

There’s also research that is basically going, “okay, we do this big set of things we know works, but which parts are the most important,” because that can be hard to know sometimes.  

I just googled the IDA, and this is from 2014.  It is not saying the same thing it said when I have looked in the past.  It says “structured literacy” now.

But it still says (page 15) “explicit, systematic, and cumulative.”  I remember those as the key things from before.

Then about two pages later it has a picture of Dr. Orton and says he is very important in the development of multisensory teaching methods. 

I suspect it’s going to be hard to have a definition of what “OG” means and how it is different from another reading program that also uses a lot of the same methods and components.  

It’s always been pretty individualized to students too, I think, which makes it hard to do a study of a *curriculum.*. 

Anyway though, I doubt much has changed about what is considered effective reading instruction by people who care about things like this.  

And then something else that is hard with research, especially when things are individualized to students, is to know with what fidelity the approaches are practiced.

So there’s a balance between being really scripted but it’s more work to individualize, or with leaving it more up to the teacher/tutor, but then what if that person is not devoting the right amount of time to different components.

This is a huge issue with autism research/therapy at least, because you don’t want too lockstep because kids go at different speeds.  But then it’s harder to know if teachers are doing the most effective things (and what exactly are those) and in the right amounts.  

What I would see with my son, with reading about it, a lot of teachers and tutors swear by one program, but then, they are not being really rigid about it and they have a lot of ideas to bring other things in and they will use techniques or change things up.  And then — okay, they like what they like, but another person who used that program as written would not be doing exactly the same things.  

There is an autism therapy too, where at this point the best things from it are routinely incorporated into all kinds of things.  And now it’s not special anymore, and — the things that weren’t the best parts of it, aren’t the best things out there.  But it is still really good stuff.

[PeterPan]

18 hours ago, MistyMountain said:

I like having more options then just OG. 

If you are on the SPELL-Talk list I mentioned, you'll see that no one is saying only OG and that they want an everything list. They're discussing now a new report that tries to list what that "everything" should be in fact. Gets kind of interesting and argumentative. But the point of my post was that as the ps follows their natural tendency toward voodoo and away from explicit instruction, they'll remove OG from "The List" of what's part of Structured Literacy, and we'll be right back where we started.

Haha, then we'll debate my use of "voodoo." Well they're discussion on that same thread some practices that have been done for 30+ years (pizzas for reading quantity, etc.) that are not evidence-based. 

Actually what cracks me up is the reading interventionists having to deal with language disabilities and what they're labeling as "poor comprehenders". I think they're actually calling it a thing now, PC, and that's the term, PC. And when you read what they're trying to do, it's all the way back to your FFC and language disability stuff. The sad thing to me is that some kids really are so hard. I've worked at reading with my ds so many different ways, and basically everything we've worked on has been a factor or problem. It's so simple for some kids and so hard for a segment. 

Edited February 13, 2019 by PeterPan

[MistyMountain]

9 hours ago, Storygirl said:

 MistyMountain, can you cite some of the research you mention?

 

The reading panel was a compilation of studies and it did have research on different types of programs including OG which they then categorize in different ways. It shows much higher gains for kindergartners that start with phonics then 2nd graders or older who started with whole words then did phonics afterwards. The gains were also higher for synthetic phonics. 

Edited February 14, 2019 by MistyMountain

[MistyMountain]

https://www.nichd.nih.gov/sites/default/files/publications/pubs/nrp/Documents/report.pdf

Here is the link to it. It was listed in one of the links here but not a direct link it was mentioned in one of the articles.

[Storygirl]

Thanks, Misty!

[Storygirl]

I skimmed some portions of the linked report, and it's interesting. I do believe it is the same study that our dyslexia school -- which considers OG the gold standard and actually is an OG training center --  refers to when educating parents and the public about the need for explicit phonetic reading instruction for those with reading disabilities, because it is the most comprehensive study that has been done, although it was completed in the 1990s.

ETA: Also, just a note that our school does not JUST remediate dyslexia. Their reading classes are kind of tiered, where any student of any age can get the basic OG but then when they are ready, they pass on to other LA classes that teach other things but still incorporate elements of OG into writing and literature lessons.

I think also that people with trouble reading do not all have dyslexia. OG is the thing that helped DD after many years of other phonics lessons failed for her, so I am a proponent of it. But I think there is room for other ways of learning, and some kids may not NEED OG the way that DD did. Systematic phonics taught a different way may work for them.

Edited February 15, 2019 by Storygirl

[Heathermomster]

I'm assuming that synthetic phonics would be equivalent to Spalding/SWR/AAS/LOE?

 

[Kanin]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought that "OG" was an approach to teaching reading based on the research of Orton and Gillingham, but that there's no "official OG" program. I'd consider Wilson as OG, and Barton, and many things. So when people say they do OG, they can mean a variety of things. As long as the instruction is systematic, explicit, multisensory, and all the rest... that sounds like OG to me.

[MistyMountain]

Yes OG is an approach based on the research of Orton that Gillingham made more accessible. Things that fall under the umbrella of an OG approach can be a little different but they share certain components. 

My personal anecdote was that an OG method or methods based off of OG (Barton and Spalding) were not successful for my child that struggled the most but another systematic approach did work. Certain components of Barton and the ways it was organized just was not going to work if I tried to stick it out. What worked was not 'multi sensory'. There are tutors that use a very systematic phonics approaches that are not OG and they have helped lots of students. OG is a method that can work and has worked well and it is a researched based approach but there are other options that the teach alphabetic code in a systematic and successful way that is not OG and OG methods that may not work as well. It seems on here that sometimes people do say if it is dyslexia you should go with OG. 

Edited February 15, 2019 by MistyMountain

[Storygirl]

3 hours ago, Mainer said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought that "OG" was an approach to teaching reading based on the research of Orton and Gillingham, but that there's no "official OG" program. I'd consider Wilson as OG, and Barton, and many things. So when people say they do OG, they can mean a variety of things. As long as the instruction is systematic, explicit, multisensory, and all the rest... that sounds like OG to me.

I would agree with this but add that there are specific OG techniques and methods. You can get certification as an OG trained teacher, and there are different levels for that. So after the intial intensive training (at our school, it is a summer program, and they say that it is the hardest classwork most of the attendees have ever taken), there are a number of supervised tutoring hours required to get the first level of certification. Then you can go beyond that and do a lot more training and get higher levels of certification. I think there are only one or two teachers at our school who have a higher level of certification, because it is so intensive to acquire it.

https://www.ortonacademy.org/training-certification/

Edited February 15, 2019 by Storygirl

[Storygirl]

Mainer, I just want to say that school districts need more teachers like you, who are willing to make changes and speak up for best practices and learn new things about reading instruction that were probably not taught in their education classes at college. Your students are so blessed to have you working so hard on their behalf!!

In contrast, I will share a little horror story.

MIL was the reading specialist at her local elementary school for almost her entire 30 year career. So when DD13 showed signs of dyslexia at age four, and continuing into the early years of homeschooling when she was five and six, I naturally turned to MIL for advice. She had NONE!! She admitted that she knew absolutely nothing about dyslexia. The only advice she had for me (which I mentally threw right in the trash bin) was that "some children don't learn to read through phonics." That is the sum total of what she could tell me. And she was the one working with the struggling readers at her school for 30 years!! As far as I know, she had no training as a special education teacher. It makes me feel a little sick inside when I think about it. MIL is the sweetest person ever, but she should not have been in that position, and she never realized it. And get this -- she and her fellow teachers considered her job to be the cushy one, because she didn't have to manage a classroom full of students, and when she retired, she talked proudly about how many people hoped to get the "easy" reading teacher job after she left.

Ugh. I don't like to think about it.

MIL was teaching from the sixties through the end of the 90s, so I can hope that teacher education has come a long way since then, and that struggling readers are getting better help in schools nowadays. But I know that in many, and perhaps most, school districts that may not be true.