Alphabetic Phonics: An organization and expansion of orton-gillingham

Abstract

Alphabetic Phonics is a sequential language curriculum designed to assure that all students can achieve literacy. This curriculum is a 1980’s organization and extension of the Orton-Gillingham-Childs multisensory teaching of the structure of English. Alphabetic Phonics allows 95 percent of the auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learners in a regular classroom to master written English. The curriculum includes modern behavioral, psychological, and educational theories and practice. Developed initially as remediation for dyslexics, Alphabetic Phonics is succeeding both with small groups of severely blocked dyslexics and as prevention in regular classrooms in the primary grades. Administrators, classroom teachers, clinicians, remedial, and resource room specialists, as well as speech and language therapists representing small and large schools (public and private; remedial and accelerated) have traveled to Texas from forty states and six foreign countries during the past ten years to earn graduate credit in one or more of the four month-long Introductory Courses held each year. Teachers report that cultural minority students and those learning English as a second language benefit especially from reading instruction which emphasizes the foundations of English and time-on-task activities to effect mastery. Outreach programs and multimedia tools are being developed and implemented to broaden the programs availability to groups with varied needs.