We have had interventions that worked since the 1920's.... While some  
of Dr. Orton's hypotheses may not have been entirely correct, but it  
started with keen observation that led to hypotheses.  Much of his  
work has been validated by subsequent research.



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Dyslexia
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Samuel Torrey Orton (October 15, 1879–November 17, 1948) was an  
American physician who pioneered the study of learning disabilities.  
He is best known for his work examining the causes and treatment of  
reading disability, or dyslexia.

Orton's study of reading difficulties in children led him to  
hypothesize that these individuals have failed to establish  
appropriate cerebral organization to support the association of visual  
words with their spoken forms.[3].

Working in the 1920’s, Orton did not have access to modern brain  
scanning equipment, but he knew from his work with brain damaged  
adults that injuries to the left hemisphere produced symptoms similar  
to those he observed in children. Many of the children Orton studied  
were also ambidextrous or had mixed handedness. This led Orton to  
theorize that the children's reading problems stemmed from the failure  
of the left hemisphere to become dominant over the right. Some of  
Orton's theories about brain structure and organization would later be  
confirmed by modern brain researchers, such as Dr. Albert Galaburda,  
who compared the brains of deceased dyslexic and non-dyslexic adults  
in the late 1970s.

Dr. Orton’s key contribution to the field of education was the concept  
of “multisensory” teaching–integrating kinesthetic (movement-based)  
and tactile (sensory-based) learning strategies with teaching of  
visual and auditory concepts. Dr. Orton wanted a way to teach reading  
that would integrate right and left brain functions. He was influenced  
by the work of fellow psychiatrist Grace Fernald, who had developed a  
kinesthetic approach involving writing in the air and tracing words in  
large written or scripted format, while simultaneously saying the  
names and sounds of the letters.

Later, Orton began working with psychologist Anna Gillingham, who  
introduced a systematic and orderly approach of categorizing and  
teaching a set of 70 phonograms, single letters and letter pairs  
representing the 44 discrete sounds (or phonemes) found in English. In  
the years since Dr. Orton's death in 1948, his name has come to be  
strongly associated with the Orton-Gillingham teaching method, which  
remains the basis of the most prevalent form of remediation and  
tutoring for children with dyslexia, or dyslexia-like symptoms, such  
as reading disabilities.

Maureen Carro, MS, ET
Academic Learning Solutions
Alamo, CA
mcarro at lmi.net



On Nov 4, 2009, at 8:47 AM, Michael Tate wrote:


> RTI got its name from observing how struggling students responded to  

> research-proven interventions.   If the students did  not respond  

> satisfactorily, another research-based intervention was selected.   

> This intervention change-out process continues until the student  

> responds satisfactorily.

>

> What I liked about the approach was that it focused on research- 

> based interventions implemented by trained teachers and staff, and  

> it stressed feedback, and it required teachers and staff to keep  

> seeking research-based techniques that would work.  These are areas  

> where the current typical special education (SE) programs fall down.  

> RTI refocused effort from identification of the disability to  

> finding effective interventions.

>

> Typically, LD students were pulled out into resource rooms and   

> given remediation materials.  I think the research is clear that  

> remediation is not the optimal way to work with LD students.   

> Rather, research-based approaches such as strategy instruction (SI)  

> are what work, but very often are not employed in current SE  

> classrooms, at least from what I have seen.

>

> Michael Tate

>

> From: learningdisabilities-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:learningdisabilities-bounces at nifl.gov 

> ] On Behalf Of Maureen Carro

> Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2009 5:12 PM

> To: The Learning Disabilities Discussion List

> Subject: [LearningDisabilities 4237] Re: Response to Intervention  

> (RTI)

>

> Here is what I thought the "tiered system" of "Response to  

> Intervention" entailed:

>

> 1.  The classroom teacher notices the student is struggling in the  

> classroom.

> 2.  More specialized classroom help is provided as the first  

> intervention.

> 3. If the student continues to struggle in spite of the classroom  

> intervention, he/she is referred to more intense, small group  

> instruction.

> 4.  If the student still fails to "respond to the intervention",  

> they  are referred to one-on-one, very specialized, intense,  

> instruction.

>

> My question:  Is this "fourth tier" struggling student not feeling  

> like he/she is failing???!!   It seems to me that they now have to  

> "fail" three times to get the right help!

>

> For heaven's sake..... why not give every child the direct explicit  

> instruction in the structure of the language..... starting with the  

> alphabetic principle, moving to syllables, words, phrases,  

> sentences, paragraphs, and discourse.... that is needed to  

> successfully read and comprehend text in the first place!

>

>

> Maureen Carro, MS, ET

> Academic Learning Solutions

> Alamo, CA

> mcarro at lmi.net

>

>

>

> On Nov 3, 2009, at 2:17 AM, HKerr at aol.com wrote:

>

>

> The RTI initiative was originally, I believe, aimed precisely at  

> adopting a different approach than the deficit one. The idea was  

> originally, according to articles by people like Jack Fletcher,  

> specifically to enable the whole environment to be considered and  

> for us to move away from the assumption that 'failure' must mean  

> deficit; that we must always seek to find a fault in the student,  

> even his neurology. Recent literature seems to show that RTI has  

> been subverted and is now being deployed as a measure which is used  

> to 'identify, a 'deficit' in exactly the way the discredited  

> discrepancy criterion was in the bad old days. For discrepancy read  

> RTI, in other words, which had not been the point originally, as I  

> understood it.

>

> Hugo

>

> at: http://www.hugokerr.info

>

> "We're here to help each other get through this thing - whatever it  

> might be." (Kurt Vonnegut)

> ----------------------------------------------------

> National Institute for Literacy

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>

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