By Karina Richland, M.Ed.
Struggling readers often need more than worksheets and flashcards. Multisensory learning, the practice of engaging visual, auditory, and kinesthetic-tactile pathways simultaneously, creates stronger neural connections that make reading skills stick. This guide explains the science behind multisensory instruction, its deep connection to Orton-Gillingham and structured literacy, and provides 10 hands-on activities you can use in the classroom or at home today.
Key Takeaways
- Multisensory learning engages sight, sound, touch, and movement at the same time, strengthening the brain’s ability to process and retain reading skills.
- Research in cognitive neuroscience shows that activating multiple sensory pathways builds stronger, more durable neural connections for decoding, spelling, and reading fluency.
- The Orton-Gillingham approach is built on multisensory instruction, making it one of the most effective methods for teaching students with dyslexia and other reading difficulties.
- Simple activities like sand trays, letter tiles, arm tapping, and sky writing can be used by teachers and parents without special training or expensive materials.
What Is Multisensory Learning?
Multisensory learning is a teaching method that simultaneously engages two or more senses during instruction. Instead of relying solely on visual input (reading text on a page) or auditory input (listening to a lecture), multisensory teaching combines seeing, hearing, touching, and moving to help students absorb and retain information.
In reading instruction, this means a child might:
- See a letter on a card (visual)
- Say its sound out loud (auditory)
- Trace the letter in a sand tray (tactile)
- Write the letter in the air with large arm movements (kinesthetic)
By activating all four pathways at once, the brain creates redundant connections to the same piece of information. If one pathway is weaker (as it often is for students with dyslexia), the other pathways compensate and reinforce learning.
This approach is sometimes called VAKT, which stands for Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, and Tactile. It is a foundational principle of structured literacy and the Orton-Gillingham methodology.
The Neuroscience: Why Engaging Multiple Senses Strengthens Reading
Multisensory learning is not just a teaching preference. It is grounded in how the human brain processes and stores information.
How the Brain Builds Reading Pathways
When a child learns to read, the brain must connect several regions that were not originally designed to work together:
- The visual cortex processes letter shapes and word forms.
- The auditory cortex processes the sounds of language (phonemes).
- The motor cortex controls the physical movements of writing and speaking.
Reading requires these areas to communicate rapidly and accurately. Neuroscientists call this process “neural integration.” The more pathways that connect to a single concept (like the letter “b” and its /b/ sound), the faster and more reliably the brain can retrieve that information.
Why Multisensory Instruction Strengthens These Connections
When instruction engages only one sense, it creates a single neural pathway. When instruction engages multiple senses simultaneously, it creates overlapping pathways that reinforce each other. Research in cognitive neuroscience has consistently shown that:
- Dual-coding theory (Paivio, 1971) demonstrates that information encoded through both verbal and nonverbal channels is recalled more effectively than information encoded through a single channel.
- Neuroimaging studies show increased activation in multiple brain regions during multisensory tasks compared to single-sense tasks.
- Memory consolidation improves when learners physically interact with material, because motor memory provides an additional retrieval cue.
For struggling readers, especially those with dyslexia, these extra neural pathways are critical. Dyslexia involves difficulty with phonological processing, meaning the auditory pathway alone is insufficient for reliable decoding. Multisensory learning provides alternative routes for the brain to access the same reading information.
The Connection to Orton-Gillingham and Structured Literacy
Multisensory instruction is not a standalone strategy. It is the delivery method at the heart of the Orton-Gillingham approach, which has been used for nearly a century to teach reading to students with dyslexia and other learning differences.
What Makes Orton-Gillingham Multisensory
Every Orton-Gillingham lesson follows the same multisensory pattern:
- The teacher presents a concept (a letter, sound, or spelling rule) visually.
- The student says the sound aloud, engaging auditory processing.
- The student traces or writes the letter or word, engaging tactile and kinesthetic pathways.
- The student reads and spells using the concept in connected text.
This layered approach ensures that no single sensory weakness can block a student’s progress. It is systematic (following a logical sequence), explicit (directly teaching each concept), and cumulative (building on previously mastered skills).
Structured Literacy and Multisensory Teaching
Structured literacy is an umbrella term that describes the broader instructional framework aligned with the Science of Reading. Multisensory teaching is one of its core delivery principles. The International Dyslexia Association identifies six key elements of structured literacy instruction, and multisensory delivery is the method through which all six are taught:
- Phonology
- Sound-symbol association
- Syllable instruction
- Morphology
- Syntax
- Semantics
Programs like PRIDE Reading Program are designed with multisensory instruction built into every lesson, making it straightforward for teachers and parents to implement without needing separate training in multisensory techniques. Explore the PRIDE Reading Program curriculum for schools to see how multisensory learning is embedded in each lesson.
10 Practical Multisensory Activities for Reading Instruction
The following activities work for both classroom teachers and parents at home. Each one engages multiple senses and can be adapted for different skill levels.
1. Sand Tray Writing
Fill a shallow tray with sand, salt, or even sugar. Have the student trace letters, digraphs, or words with their finger while saying each sound aloud. The tactile feedback from the sand, combined with the visual and auditory components, creates three simultaneous memory pathways.
Best for: Letter formation, sound-symbol association, spelling
2. Letter Tiles for Word Building
Use letter tiles to build and manipulate words. Students physically move tiles to blend sounds, segment words, and swap letters to create new words. The act of picking up and placing each tile adds a kinesthetic layer to phonics instruction.
Best for: Blending, segmenting, phoneme substitution, syllable division
3. Arm Tapping
Students tap each sound in a word on their arm as they say it, starting at the shoulder and moving down to the wrist. For the word “cat,” they would tap their shoulder for /k/, their forearm for /æ/, and their wrist for /t/. This helps students feel the individual sounds within a word.
Best for: Phoneme segmentation, blending, encoding
4. Sky Writing
Have the student stand up and “write” letters or words in the air using their whole arm (not just the wrist). The large motor movements engage the kinesthetic system and help students internalize letter formation. Say the letter name or sound while writing.
Best for: Letter formation, reversals (b/d confusion), spelling patterns
5. Textured Letter Tracing
Create textured letters using sandpaper, felt, or puffy paint on index cards. Students trace each letter with their finger while saying its sound. The rough texture provides strong tactile feedback that reinforces the letter-sound connection.
Best for: Alphabet knowledge, letter-sound correspondence, students who struggle with fine motor skills
6. Finger Tapping
Students touch their thumb to each finger in sequence as they say each sound in a word. For “ship,” they would tap thumb to index finger for /sh/, thumb to middle finger for /ɪ/, and thumb to ring finger for /p/. This is a portable, no-materials activity that works anywhere.
Best for: Phoneme segmentation, blending, on-the-go practice
7. Magnetic Letter Boards
Using magnetic letters on a whiteboard or cookie sheet, students build words, sort letters by vowels and consonants, and practice spelling patterns. The magnetic letters are satisfying to manipulate and give students a physical sense of how words are constructed.
Best for: Vowel-consonant patterns, word families, spelling rules
8. Read, Build, Write
This three-step activity combines reading, building, and writing:
- Read a word on a flashcard.
- Build the word using letter tiles or magnetic letters.
- Write the word on paper or a whiteboard while saying each sound.
Each step engages a different combination of senses, reinforcing the word through three distinct pathways.
Best for: Sight words, high-frequency words, spelling practice
9. Playdough Letters
Students roll playdough into ropes and form letters, digraphs, or words. While shaping each letter, they say its sound. This activity is particularly effective for younger students or those who benefit from heavy tactile input.
Best for: Letter formation, fine motor development, early phonics
10. Body Spelling
For kinesthetic learners who need to move, body spelling turns the whole body into a spelling tool. Students spell words using physical movements: reach up high for tall letters (b, d, h), touch the ground for letters with tails (g, p, y), and stand straight for short letters (a, e, o). This activity is ideal for students who struggle to sit still during traditional instruction.
Best for: Spelling, letter formation awareness, movement breaks, kinesthetic learners
Who Benefits Most from Multisensory Learning?
While every student benefits from multisensory instruction, certain groups see the most significant gains.
Students with Dyslexia
Dyslexia primarily affects phonological processing, the brain’s ability to connect sounds with letters. Multisensory instruction provides alternative pathways (touch, movement) that bypass this weakness. Research consistently shows that students with dyslexia make greater gains with Orton-Gillingham-based multisensory programs than with traditional reading instruction.
Struggling Readers
Students who are behind in reading for any reason, whether due to limited early literacy exposure, attention difficulties, or language-based learning challenges, benefit from the additional reinforcement that multisensory learning provides.
Kinesthetic and Tactile Learners
Some students simply learn better when they can touch and move. These learners often struggle in traditional classroom settings that emphasize visual and auditory instruction. Multisensory activities give them legitimate, productive ways to learn through their strongest channels.
English Language Learners
Students learning English as a second language benefit from the multi-channel reinforcement of sound-symbol relationships, especially when the sounds of English differ from their first language.
Multisensory Learning in the Classroom vs. at Home
In the Classroom
Teachers can integrate multisensory techniques into their existing reading instruction without overhauling their entire curriculum. Effective classroom strategies include:
- Rotating activity stations with sand trays, letter tiles, and magnetic boards
- Whole-group sky writing to introduce new letters or spelling patterns
- Small-group word building with letter tiles during guided reading
- Arm tapping as a routine phoneme segmentation exercise
- Finger tapping during whole-group phonics instruction
For teachers looking for a fully structured multisensory curriculum, the PRIDE Reading Program for school districts provides scripted Orton-Gillingham lessons with multisensory activities built into every session. No separate OG training is needed.
At Home
Parents can use multisensory activities to support reading development at home, whether they are homeschooling or supplementing school instruction. Home-friendly strategies include:
- Kitchen table sand trays using salt or sugar in a baking pan
- Letter tiles or magnetic letters on the refrigerator
- Finger tapping during read-aloud sessions to practice new words
- Playdough letters as a combined learning and play activity
- Sky writing as a movement break between homework tasks
For homeschool families, the PRIDE Reading Program homeschool curriculum is fully scripted and designed for parents to teach without previous OG training. Each lesson includes specific multisensory activities with clear instructions.
Students who need additional one-on-one support can work with a trained reading specialist through PRIDE Reading Tutors, which provides online Orton-Gillingham tutoring sessions.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is multisensory learning?
Multisensory learning is a teaching method that engages two or more senses, visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile, at the same time. In reading instruction, this means students see letters, say sounds, trace or write letters, and physically manipulate materials like letter tiles or sand trays simultaneously, creating stronger neural connections for reading skills.
Why is multisensory learning important for reading?
Reading requires the brain to connect visual symbols (letters) with sounds (phonemes) and motor patterns (writing). Multisensory instruction activates all of these brain regions at once, building overlapping neural pathways that make decoding, spelling, and fluency more automatic. This is especially important for students with dyslexia or other reading difficulties.
Is multisensory learning evidence-based?
Yes. Multisensory learning is supported by decades of research in cognitive neuroscience and educational psychology. The Orton-Gillingham approach, which is inherently multisensory, is recognized by the International Dyslexia Association as an effective instructional method for students with dyslexia. Studies on dual-coding theory and neuroplasticity further support the effectiveness of engaging multiple senses during learning.
What is the difference between multisensory and multi-modal learning?
Multi-modal learning presents information through different modes (such as a video, a text, and a discussion) but typically one at a time. Multisensory learning specifically requires engaging two or more senses simultaneously during the same activity. The simultaneous activation is what creates the stronger neural connections.
How does multisensory learning help students with dyslexia?
Students with dyslexia have difficulty with phonological processing, meaning the pathway between sounds and letters is unreliable. Multisensory instruction adds tactile and kinesthetic pathways that bypass this weakness, giving the brain multiple routes to access the same reading information. When a student traces a letter in sand while saying its sound, they create touch-based and movement-based memory cues in addition to the auditory and visual ones.
Can parents use multisensory learning at home?
Absolutely. Many multisensory activities require no special materials. Parents can use sand or salt trays, playdough, finger tapping, sky writing, and letter tiles to practice reading skills at home. These activities work for both homeschool instruction and as supplements to school-based reading programs.
Final Thoughts
Multisensory learning is not a trend or a teaching fad. It is a neuroscience-backed instructional method that has been central to effective reading instruction for nearly a century. By engaging visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile pathways simultaneously, multisensory teaching creates the redundant neural connections that struggling readers need to decode, spell, and read fluently.
Whether you are a teacher implementing structured literacy in your classroom, a homeschool parent looking for a proven approach, or a reading specialist working with students who have dyslexia, multisensory instruction should be at the core of your practice. The activities in this guide are simple, effective, and ready to use today.
Explore the PRIDE Reading Program to see how multisensory Orton-Gillingham instruction is built into every lesson, or learn about our online tutoring services for students who need one-on-one support.