A success story: A large urban district offers a working model for implementing multisensory teaching into the resource and regular classroom

Abstract

A large urban school district contracted with a private nonprofit educational foundation to train 126 special education resource teachers in the last three years in an Orton-Gillingham-based program. These teachers are currently teaching learning-disabled students in groups of 8-10 at the elementary level and 10-13 students at the secondary level. Learning-disabled students who qualify for Special Education, either in reading or spelling, or both, are receiving the instruction.The teachers took a Basic Introductory Class (90 hours of Advanced Academic Credit offered by the Texas Education Agency, or six hours of graduate credit at a local university) in order to teach the program in the resource setting. A two year Advanced Training included annual on-site observations, two half-day workshops each fall and spring, and a two-day advanced workshop in the second summer.First grade teachers, one selected from each of the 164 campuses, supervisors, and principals attended a 25-hour course on "Recognizing Dyslexia: Using Multisensory Teaching and Discovery Techniques." The first grade teachers and special education resource teachers collaborated to provide inservice training for their colleagues.Research, conducted by the district's Research Department, reveals statistically significant gains in reading and spelling ability for the learning-disabled resource students as measured by the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test-Revised, and the Test of Written Spelling.