Has anyone been before? I'm going soon and I'd love to know what to expect. It's a 4-day training, so I can't even imagine what I'm going to learn in that amount of time.
I'll be teaching 2nd grade, but I assume it's not grade-based training.
I went like 5 years ago and it was fantastic. You will learn a lot and get a lot of materials and ideas. It is not targeted to any specific grade level, as it is a means to help students with Language Arts (spelling, reading, phonics, and writing.)
Are you by chance in VA? I got selected for this last year. Something to keep in mind: there are a lot of "flavors" of Orton-Gillingham. For example, Fundations is based on Orton Gillingham. So is Explode the Code, if I'm not mistaken.
If your training is anything like mine, ignore the parts where the trainer says ridiculous things, such as elkonin boxes are to be used NEVER, or that multi-sensory means saying things as you write. My trainer emphasized drilling with worksheets, but I've heard lots of lovely things from others! So I took what I liked, and left the rest.
Bring some not-obvious busy work, just in case. My training was excruciating. My training was purely phonics and how to teach a two part lesson drilling and applying those phonic skills.
My first year of teaching, my sped director went to the real training and then came back to train the rest of us...in 4 hours . I would LOVE to get the real training and looked into going myself, but it's very expensive!
The little I learned from my director was very valuable and I wish I had all of the information. I like that the strategies can be applied to any "program" rather than it being some scripted thing that you have to follow. I have added the OG routine with the multisensory sand into our other phonics programs and have found it to be highly effective.
I'm in MS. I've never heard of elkonin boxes! Yeah, my new grade-level team said they don't use it to the exact recommendations of OG. I just knew that if I was expected to use it, I'd better learn how. Good to know some had good experience with it.
YouTube has several short demo lessons. Teacher Pay Teachers has several free and low cost O-G products.
Our school currently is lucky enough to have 17 children being tutored by trained O-G tutors. This year I worked with 4 small groups of kindergarteners on sight words. I incorporated 2 of their strategies, bumpy boards and the tap, tap, slide. They were very effective and fun!
I went to two weeks (yes, two weeks!) of OG training last summer. They were full days, 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. And we had homework! It was exhausting. On the other hand, it helped me get a new job, which I hated, but that helped me get another new job, which I love. Now I have to complete the classroom teacher certification, and it's going to be like writing a master's thesis.
Anyway, I teach OG every day. There are lots of struggling reader programs that are OG based--Barton, Wilson (both the Wilson Reading System and Fundations), All About Reading and All About Spelling, for example. I have learned, though, that you can't follow one system blindly, though. I was taught to use the phonics progression in the old June Orton book (copyright 1964), and none of the other programs matches it. So you always have to assemble things from many sources. Fortunately, there are lots of resources online. On TPT, take a look at The Literacy Nest. The All About Reading and All About Spelling blogs are terrific.
Hi, I am Orton Gillingham certified. Mine was a 2-year training. It is a very useful tool when teaching ELA and especially phonics. I use a lot of mnemonics and kinesthetic activities. I teach the rules of the letters/sounds etc. I make posters of these rules to hang in the classroom. Ialso make a smaller version which the students place in am interactive phonics notebook. I teach Kindergarten I use it every day. Good luck in your training.
teacherwriter, the training is through their website so I assume it's directly through OG. I have to bring some items, so I figured we'd do a lot of the hands-on there. I'm glad - it will help me understand and remember it!
creativekind, mine is only for 4 days - I can't imagine what you learned in 2 years!
Hi SusanTeach...We had a 2 hour weekly graduate level course twice a week. Plus we had to tutor two students /one on one/ for one hour each twice a week.Not to mention the 4 page lesson plans. Twice a week for each child. It was very intense. It is very useful and it really does help the struggling readers. It was an awful lot of work. If you need any help, let me know. Good luck to you
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05-23-2018, 05:18 PM
. I would LOVE to get the real training and looked into going myself, but it's very expensive! 
