Obviously Great (see what I did there?)

Each time I begin a new day at the Learning Academy, I am always reminded of the reasons it is Obivously Great. Not only are the teachers and staff friendly, but the school offers a great teaching technique used towards students with dyslexia. The Obivously Great technique is referred to as O(bvisouly)G(great), or the Orton Gillingham approach. This approach allows for flexibility in learning. Children who suffer from reading, writing, and spelling, or any characteristic associated with dyslexia, are taught with three learning models: visual, auditory, and sensory.

Each day the Learning Academy begins instruction with the OG approach. "Okay, class," Mrs. Paul says after the moment of silence, "Clear your desk, and get in your 'WOW' position." The 'WOW' position is what the Learning Academy means by "proper writing posture." The students must have their writing hand on the desk, the other in their lap, feet flat on the floor, and their back up straight. Everything must be cleared from the desks, including tissue, notebooks, pencils, etc. Just like with any transition period with any class, there is always that one student who likes to practice their "management" skills. Kelly, a girl who I have not had the opportunity to be around, due to testing and absences, went over to Matthew and gave him his tissue packet. "Kelly, worry about yourself," Mrs. Paul states, and the class begins their lesson/review.

The class reviews the previous consonants and vowels learned (i.e. c, m, a, o, etc.). Mrs. Paul holds up flashcards with the learned letter on it and an example (visual); the class says the name (auditory), says the sound, and says an example (apple is always used with 'a'). With the vowels, the students do the action associated with the word; for example, with apple the students pretend to bite into an apple. With all letters, students write the word on their desk using their pointer and middle finger to trace (sensory). After the review, the students are introduced to a new letter, 'v.' Each student is given an individual mirror and is told to say the letter 'v.' While the students were doing this, Anthony put his fingers to his throat and sparked a whole conversation about noisy and quiet sounds/letters. They compared 'v' to 'f' and felt the vibrations of both. All of a sudden Jacob pipes up and goes, "The 'v' is voiced and the 'f' is unvoiced." Oh boy, oh boy! What a smart kid this is! I was stunned. I had just previously learned these terms, and this second grader already knew it. While of this was happening, I noticed Zach looking at himself in the mirror while making funny faces. Mrs. Paul never noticed this, but I thought of it as quite amusing.

Next was the introduction of the vowel, 'u.' Rather than discussing the concept of voiced and unvoiced consonants, the class began talking about noisy and open vowels and the ample sounds that accompany the same vowel. "Vowels are the music of our language," Mrs. Paul eloquently says. The class once again looked at their mouth formations. Once this was over, Mrs. Paul collected the mirrors and Cody tells her, "Thank you for letting us borrow your mirror." This class is amazing. They are funny, smart, and polite! Oh boy!

Then the class does a visual drill using the same flashcards; however, they must quickly say the letter and sound individually while also explaining if it is a vowel or consonant- Jacob was the only student to say that a vowel was a consonant. This also gave Mrs. Paul a chance to see who added extra sounds to the letters. For example, Michael adds the long 'a' sound to 'y' and Mrs. Paul practices clipping off the vowel sounds. During this drill, I noticed that Mrs. Paul says the 'r' sound incorrectly. The 'r' sound, as taught in my lecture class, makes the sound like in "rough." However, Mrs. Paul said it as "er." We don't say "erough."

"3, 2, 1 eyes up here with me," was used to get the student's attention during the suffix "-s" lesson. Mrs. Paul began by showing various words ending in 's' on the Smart Board. Jacob was given the word, "lots" and he said "lost." Once this occured, Mrs. Paul began implementing the swoop motion. For example, the class would say lot, and use their pinky finger and swoop it in the air to represent the 's.' Bentley, the class fidgeter, continuously played with his tissue packet the whole time, resulting in the loss of a manners stick.

With the ending of OG instruction, I passed out coding worksheets. These worksheets had the students pay attention to the consonants and vowels in the words. The words were only closed syllable words because the students have yet to learn what open syllable words are. With this worksheet, the students had to:

1) Find the vowel and draw a line underneath it.

2) Put a 'v' for vowel underneath it.

3) Put a breve above it if short.

4) Draw two lines under the consonant letters.

5) Put a 'c' for consonant above those letters.

6, a new step) Box in the suffix

Mrs. Paul, when explaining the directions, had the students stand up and do a fancy move with step six: box in the suffix. With their pointer finger they drew a box in the air and moved their hips along with the move. Bentley, began singing the "The Whip Nae Nae song," ("Now watch me whip, whip, watch me nae nae").

The students had to do the steps in the correct order or I had to go over the steps again with them. They also could not do step one first for all of the problems, and then step two for all of the problems- they had to do all of the steps on one problem before moving on. Mrs. Paul and I kept track of who did the steps incorrectly, and once the worksheet was complete, Mrs. Paul individually called them to the board to do a different word in order to rehash the steps. After the ones who had troubles had the chance to do another practice word on the board, Mrs. Paul came up with some more words. She said, "Let me see if I can trick you." Kelly's response was, "Hm, probably not," and her remark stood true, and this ended my day at the Learning Academy.

OG instruction I think should be used with all students, no matter if they have dyslexia or not. English is a very difficult language to learn, and this technique is beneficial to the learning process. I have learned so much about sounds since beginning this observation. For example, I never noticed that I used to say the individual 'r' sound wrong- I used to say it just like Mrs. Paul. I still need to work on clipping off my vowel sounds. I loved the fancy movement with the coding worksheet. A lot of educators, I feel, give the student the word and the meaning of consonants/vowels, but do not actually give examples or have the students apply the definition to real word examples. The worksheet was a great way to get the students to think outside the box. The students always cheer when they know that OG instruction is happening. OG gives the students a chance to review previous sounds and letters that may have been forgotten (a side affect that comes with dyslexia). The students begin to feel comfortable and confident, and thus, don't get nervous when introduced a new letter.