
Is Orton-Gillingham Still the Gold Standard?
Have you heard…or maybe even said this too? That Orton-Gillingham methods are the “gold standard” for phonics instruction?
The Orton–Gillingham approach, along with the trainings and programs based on the approach – frequently report it as so:



Orton-Gillingham: A Closer Look
Indeed, reviews from key reading journals and books over the last 15 years show that there’s little to no strong research proving that Orton-Gillingham methods offer benefits beyond other synthetic phonics approaches.
See Ritchey & Goeke, Stevens, et. al., Solari, et, al., and Austin, et. al.
For many people who have experienced their training in Orton-Gillingham as nearly a salvation amidst the muck of the whole language or balanced literacy years the whole language or balanced literacy years – this is hard to hear.
Many children in the US and across the world have learned to read due to the dedication and training of a variety of Orton-Gillingham organizations and trained teachers, tutors, and parents.
And these victories have often been hard won in a world brainwashed by the 3-cueing model for reading acquisition.
So I get it! If that’s been your experience, you may prefer to ignore anyone or anything that dares to question the dominance of Orton-Gillingham approaches.
But can you hear me out?
Challenging the Status Quo of O-G
Is Orton-Gillingham truly considered the ultimate benchmark for effectively teaching individuals with challenges in word reading?
Today, I want to delve into the accurate scientific findings and our current knowledge, exploring how we can effectively discuss Orton-Gillingham methods or any instructional approach that claims to be a “Science of Reading” aligned program.
Science of Reading: Evolving Perspectives
Research has been showing up at Orton-Gillingham’s door like unannounced classroom observations, questioning its long-held title.
First, I’d like to remind myself and you that even as we embrace the so-called “Science of Reading” movement, we need to remember that science evolves.
As The Reading League cautions us all in its Science of Reading: Defining GuideI, we should not base our decisions on the popularity of a particular program but on the quality of the evidence.
Science is evolving.
So, my first main point as we get into this discussion about Orton-Gillingham is that since science is evolving, we should stay curious.
Indeed, this is one of the parting words of Sold a Story podcast, led by Emily Hanford,
Now that my sermon is over – let’s dive into the research on Orton-Gillingham.
In recent memory, an often-cited literature review in 2006 by Ritchey and Goeke demonstrated that:
- there were few research studies of Orton-Gillingham approaches;
- some of them were positive in all contexts, but
- the methodological rigor of the body of work was poor.

Then, from 2010 to 2013, the federal Institute for Education Sciences’ What Works Clearinghouse reviewed several programs associated with the Orton-Gillingham tradition, such as Barton, Fundations, Wilson, Language!, and Project Read.
With the unusually stringent What Works Clearinghouse criteria, almost none of the programs had research that qualified even for review.
However, two studies did qualify – one for LANGUAGE! and one for Project Read.


Unfortunately, both of these studies indicated no discernible advantage in one or more reading measures for these two Orton-Gillingham approaches.

What We Learned About Orton-Gillingham in 2021 to Today

By then, more studies had become available compared to the literature review conducted in 2006. Nevertheless, the reviewers arrived at similar conclusions, expressing their findings as follows:
“Findings suggested Orton-Gillingham reading interventions do not statistically significantly improve foundational skill outcomes.”
They expressed an interest in more methodologically rich research as well.
State Mandates and Instructional Time
Most importantly, Stevens and colleagues imply that given the limited evidence of the efficacy of Orton Gillingham methods at this time, states should not be mandating teacher training and implementation of Orton-Gillingham (Orton-Gillingham) methodology – even though several of them already have!
Finally, a team of researchers restated the limited current evidence base for Orton-Gillinham methods in The Reading League Journal.
The researchers, who included Christy Austin, the journal editor Emily Solari, and two others, concluded:
There is a strong and robust evidence base for several important aspects of the Orton-Gillingham approach, including direct and explicit instruction with scaffolding, structured and sequential instruction, and diagnostic and prescriptive instruction. However, there is less evidence to suggest that teachers should spend instructional time implementing the multisensory aspects of the program, and further research is needed to understand how various approaches to reading multisyllabic words compare to each other.
And still one more as a bonus for our readers!
A 2023 meta-analysis was conducted by Colby Hall and colleagues covering intervention research “aimed to improve reading outcomes for Grade K-5 students with or at risk for dyslexia” spanning 40 years.
In their section “Moderators on Intervention Effects,” the researchers state:
Still, it seems evident, based on this and other research (e.g., Al Otaiba et al., 2018; Stevens et al., 2020) that there is not sufficient evidence for the benefit of reading instructional programs that describe themselves as multisensory to require that school districts use them in place of other evidence-based instructional approaches (i.e., other explicit, systematic approaches to foundational skills instruction) that do not describe themselves as multisensory.
In sum, while aspects of Orton-Gillingham such as explicit, structured instruction have a robust research base, the multisensory component and syllable-types rules lack the empirical backing to justify its mandated use in classrooms.
As the evidence stands, educators and policymakers may be wise to consider other evidence-based approaches that prioritize foundational reading skills without requiring all elements of traditional Orton-Gillingham methods.
How to Talk About Orton-Gillingham Approaches
At this point, regardless of how powerful our personal experience with Orton-Gillingham may have been, we should be awakening to the fact that we can’t say anymore – at least for now – that Orton-Gillingham approaches are “the gold standard,” especially while we’re saying that we are embracing the Science of Reading.
We just don’t have the scientific backing at this time to conclude that these approaches, as a whole, are superior to other reading interventions.
Don’t panic!
No one is saying that you have to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
No one is saying in any way that everything in Orton-Gillingham instruction is wrong.
Researchers are simply saying we know that some features work, but we still need data for others.
Hence, this is my call to stay open to learning!
Instructional Adjustments: Staying Curious
Given that Orton-Gillingham approaches are nearly 100 years old, it makes sense that all the modern research that has been growing could reveal opportunities for improvement.
We can be open to how we might adjust certain features.
A tweak here.
A refinement there.
It may feel like uncharted territory, but it’s not like traversing through a wormhole. 😉
Now, let's roll up our sleeves in keeping with our goal of staying curious and consider a couple of newer research-backed ways to spruce up the good ol' Orton-Gillingham method.
Instructional Swap #1
First, many, but certainly not all, Orton-Gillingham-type programs teach children to decode by segmenting, or separating, every phoneme first – before attempting to read the word.
However, research in the ‘90s by Weisberg and colleagues and again in 2020 from notable researcher Linnea Ehri and her colleague Gonzalez-Frey have demonstrated that children have much better outcomes with a continuous blending approach.
Indeed, in the Gonzalez-Frey and Ehri study, they explained how challenging it was to teach this type of continuous blending in a Fundations classroom where decoding through segmenting first was so well learned.
SO, they ran a 2nd experiment with students who had not yet been taught the segment-first approach.
This group of children had much less trouble learning how to blend continuously.
The authors noted,
“We were surprised that children learned to decode so quickly given that they could not decode nonwords on the pretest.”
- Gonzalez-Frey & Ehri, 2020
Researchers don’t often use emotional words like “surprise,” so this finding is especially curious!
In other words, to read the word, “sat,” many Orton-Gillinham approaches would advise the child to say /s/…/a/…./t/ in a separated fashion and then ask her what the word is.
Some may even ask the child to tap her arm as she isolates each phoneme in the word unless the practice is reserved for irregular words.
This approach can work for many, but it’s less likely to work efficiently for those with poor phonological processing.
Instead, make the tiniest adjustment by blending sounds from the beginning instead of abruptly stopping. For example: /sssssaaaaa—-t/, “sat.”
Here at Reading Simplified, we call it Blend As You Read.
Watch this clip to see how quick and easy it can be.
That’s not a big deal, right? Feel ready to give it a go?
Instructional Swap #2
I’d like to share one more aspect of Orton-Gillingham instruction that could be adjusted in light of recent reading research.
More and more, reading researchers have demonstrated that we don’t learn to recognize new words by applying a phonics rule but rather by pattern recognition.
Scientists call this “statistical learning.”
For example,
The child reads many words where the letter “c” relates to the sound /k/ as in “cat,” “carrot,” or “count.”
She also occasionally runs across other words in which the letter “c” represents the /s/ sound, as in “cent,” “city,” or “cycle.”
She may not be consciously aware of the pattern that the letter “c” followed by “e,” “i,” or “y,” usually triggers the soft “c” sound /s/.
Nevertheless, she still eventually applies this pattern when she encounters a word for the first time such as “circle.”
Yep, research has repeatedly shown that even without instruction, even without conscious awareness, most developing readers and adult readers apply these patterns to unfamiliar nonsense words such as “cepe.”
It's actually really amazing that our brains can do this!!
And the Simplifiers' experience is that with activities that prime their students' sound-based decoding skills, students DO develop this amazing, subconscious ability to observe patterns about written language.
Research Backing for a More Flexible Approach
Two quick points:
- Researchers have a good case for statistical learning versus rule application and it’s growing.
Please read Dr. Mark Seidenberg’s Language at the Speed of Sight for instance.
Or check out this teacher-friendly summary, Reading as Statistical Learning by Dr. Joanne Arciuli.
- Other reading approaches do exist that do not rely mostly on the teaching of rules to help children learn how to decode.
Many of these have been studied extensively by leading researchers, such as Joe Torgesen, Frank Vellutino, Maureen Lovett, Benita Blachman, Maryann Wolf, Carolyn Denton and others.
These are the influential researchers who have received millions of federal funds to study how to intervene with struggling readers.
We have learned a variety of things about how to teach reading from these researchers and not all of the approaches they have studied included the learning of phonics rules.

Real-world Results: The Targeted Reading Intervention
I want you to feel confident in your efforts as you implement these changes. So, let me share some further insight into my background.
Before creating Reading Simplified, I led the development of the Targeted Reading Intervention, or TRI.
Across more than 10 articles, the TRI has demonstrated good results for struggling K-1 readers in low-income, rural communities.
Because of these repeated good effects, TRI was recommended for replication by the IES Director in 2019 and is on the What Works Clearinghouse as an effective program for word identification. In addition, the TRI has one of the highest effect sizes on Evidence for ESSA.
This blog goes into more detail.
Reading Simplified springboards from the work we did with the TRI and neither rely much on rules for decoding instruction.
Stay Curious: The Path to Effective Instruction
SO we can see that the theoretical research is pointing us away from a lot of emphases on rules.
We can also see that other intervention approaches have succeeded without rules.
“There are many systematic approaches to improving reading outcomes for students with dyslexia, but the most common characteristic of effective programs is the use of explicit instruction in phonics.”
–Clemens & Vaughn, 2023
We can continue to learn about how to tweak our instruction in light of recent research to find a more efficient path!
Your Turn!
Want to see more about how Reading Simplified utilizes successive blending?
Check this out: How to Teach Blending Sounds to Read Words
We’d love to hear from you! What piece of research is new for you, and how do you feel about implementing these changes?
What is your suggestion to focus on with a 7th grader who reads at a 4th/5th grade level, but typically reads thru multi-syllabic words rather than analyzing each part? I have tried read as you go and covered all but the first syllable to begin, but he is reluctant and feels like the activities are babyish. I will keep at it, but wanted to ask for suggestions Thank you
Still digging into developing his sound-based decoding is important for his growth. So if he resists certain activities, then it’s smart to look for other options. How can the activity – or the objective of the activity – be modified to seem less babyish?
One thing I do with older readers is move very rapidly through a variety of Word Work activities so they don’t have time to realize it’s for little kids. 😉 I also intersperse these activities with apps such What’s Changed?
Switch It at a high level, such as 5 sound words or even 6 sound nonsense words for 5 minutes a day, can be esp. helpful to help sounds and symbols get processed better. Do Switch It by just having him write and erase one sound at a time on a dry erase board.
Another activity that can teach MS word reading is Write It with MS words. Also, keep covering the end of the syllable when he needs it in Guided Oral Reading but take a break for now with Read It. I would also try to find an intriguing, advanced authentic text that he might enjoy such as Hunger Games or Harry Potter, etc. for Guided Oral Reading. Good luck!