Structured literacy and Orton-Gillingham

1 Where it came from

Samuel Orton, a neuropsychiatrist at Columbia University, worked with the educator and psychologist Anna Gillingham on children who struggled to read. Gillingham and Bessie Stillman published their teaching manual in 1935, and it became the Orton-Gillingham approach. In 2014 the International Dyslexia Association coined "Structured Literacy" as an umbrella name for teaching built on those principles, and in 2024 it convened a working group to update the definition.

2 The big ideas

• Teach the whole system of the language. The IDA lists six elements: phonology (sounds), sound-symbol links (phonics), syllables, morphology (word parts), syntax (sentence structure) and semantics (meaning), taught together rather than in isolation.
• Systematic and cumulative. Simple to complex, in the logical order of the language; each lesson reviews what came before.
• Explicit. The adult says and shows the rule or pattern; the child is never left to work it out by guessing.
• Diagnostic. The teacher watches each child's errors and adjusts the next lesson to them.
• Multisensory practice, often: see the letter, say the sound, write it, sometimes tap or trace it.

3 What a lesson looks like

A 30-minute Orton-Gillingham-style tutoring session with an 8-year-old: it opens with a quick drill of phonogram cards. The tutor flips sh, the child says /sh/ and writes it in the air, then on paper. The tutor reviews last week's pattern, closed syllables, and introduces a new one: the silent e that makes the vowel say its name. With letter tiles, the child builds cap, adds an e to make cape, then pin to pine. They read a list of words, then a few sentences, then a short passage made of patterns the child already knows. The session ends with dictation: the tutor says The kite is on the pine, and the child repeats it and writes it, marking each silent e.

4 Reading and math

This is a reading and spelling approach. Reading and spelling are taught as two sides of one code: every pattern a child reads, they also spell from dictation.

5 The adult's job

The adult follows a set sequence, teaches each new concept directly, models it, gives plenty of guided practice and corrects errors on the spot by pointing to the rule or the letters. In tutoring programs such as Barton, the materials are designed so that a parent without teacher training can deliver them.

6 How progress is checked

Progress is checked against the sequence: a child moves on when they can read and spell the current pattern accurately, often in made-up words as well as real ones. Many programs place children with a short test of which patterns they already know, and the Wilson Reading System sequences its 12 steps by spelling complexity, not by grade.

7 Strengths and criticisms

8 What the research says

The evidence for structured literacy rests mostly on its parts. Systematic phonics, phonemic awareness taught with letters, and decoding practice all have strong evidence in the National Reading Panel report and the What Works Clearinghouse's K-3 foundational skills guide. Evidence for named programs is mixed and often limited: the WWC (2007) found potentially positive effects of the Wilson Reading System on alphabetics, with no discernible effects on fluency or comprehension, based on one study. UFLI Foundations earned "Meets Expectations" ratings from EdReports in 2025, and its developers report gains in their own pilot. Barton, Logic of English and All About Reading have no WWC reports. On decodable books, Cheatham and Allor (2012) found few studies that isolate how decodable a text is, so the honest answer is that nobody knows exactly how much decodable reading is best.

9 How to try it

1. Pick one sequence and stick to it. Peabody's phonics teaching order runs from s a t p i n through digraphs, blends, silent e, vowel teams and r-controlled vowels.
2. Run a 15-minute daily lesson in the O-G shape: review card drill, one new pattern, read words, read a sentence, then dictation.
3. Make letter tiles from index cards and do word chains: cat, cap, map, mop, shop. Change one letter at a time and have your child read each new word.
4. Dictate two sentences a day using only patterns you have taught, and check them together.
5. Read decodable books for practice, then move on to ordinary books as soon as your child reads a pattern easily.
6. If reading stays hard after a few months of this, ask the school about a dyslexia evaluation.

10 Using Peabody with it

• The order to teach phonicsA clear sequence with a sheet for each pattern, the cumulative order structured literacy asks for.
• Decodable readersPeabody's library has decodables at levels 0 to 2 that follow a 16-step phonics order, s a t p i n, then CVC, digraphs, blends, silent e, vowel teams, r-controlled and on to prefixes and suffixes; that order genuinely lines up with structured literacy.
• Decodable sentences by patternWord lists and sentences for twelve patterns, every one using only taught patterns, for the read-a-sentence step of a lesson.
• Dictation sheet makerPrints a passage in bits to read aloud and ruled lines to write on, for the dictation step.
• Phonics worksheetsWord building, sorts and ladders for each pattern in teaching order; Peabody does not replace a trained tutor for a child with dyslexia.

Peabody is free and has no ads. Pages on peabody.kids are for children; pages here are for the adults teaching them.

11 Programs that follow it

Programs and materials often named with this approach: Wilson Reading System, Fundations, Barton Reading & Spelling System, S.P.I.R.E., UFLI Foundations, Logic of English, All About Reading.