Multi-Sensory Strategies for Reading

     It's been a busy couple of days and I've got lots to share.
     I had a great talk with a parent after school.  She was looking for suggestions to help her child.  Yay!  All of the students can benefit from these multi-sensory strategies.  We are starting now with the basic procedures, but these multi-sensory strategies can be applied to reading skills throughout all grade levels (multi-syllabic words, sight words geared to any grade level, challenging phonics skills).

1.  Visual Drill:   I just use one of the cards to left at a time.  The students repeat after me:  "n" says /n/.  I flash them quickly.  Once students have mastery of skills, we move on to the next ones (blends, diagraphs, etc.).
2.  Blending:  Blending is another words for sounding out.  This is similar to above.  The students repeat after me:  /n/ /e/ /p/ nep.  This skill provides excellent practice that we measure with the DIBELs assessment.  I will post about this soon.
3.  Auditory drill:  I call out the letter (skill) sound and the students write the letter in sand while saying "b" says /b/.
**This picture wouldn't upload (who knows why), but it's just a tray of sand (black/purple) that the children use to write letters.

4.  Sight Words:  We use a screen to make the crayon feel bumpy.  Once we switch for RLB (reading/language block), we will really be working on teaching and holding students accountable for knowing assigned sight words.  I will go into more detail about this later.  The important thing for parents to know for at home is arm-tapping.  This is amazing.  A student can come to a sight (words you can not sound out) and not know it.  Then they arm-tap it and voila....miracle.  To arm-tap a sight word, a right-handed child uses the right arm to tap on the left arm.  Start at the top of the shoulder and move down while saying the letters.  Finish by sweeping down the arm and saying the word.   
      Using the same strategies at home as in school will benefit all of the children so much.  I must admit that we didn't get to everything this week, but the Orton-Gillingham multi-sensory strategies will be a key component of our reading instruction.  I will share comprehension strategies as the year progresses as well.
     FYI: Thanks to our district for spending a lot of money to send me (and other teachers) to a week long training to learn about these research-based strategies.  They also spent a great deal of money on the materials.  These are the procedures we've introduced so far....many more to come.  I have been doing my best to implement these strategies without the training for awhile now and I have seen MAJOR improvements with students in the past.  I can't wait to see what happens when I actually know what I'm doing:)
      We had TWO parents come in this week for "Kid for a Day."  Hooray!  Thanks to them for coming and for sharing their feedback...much appreciated!