Are you currently homeschooling your children and looking for a reading curriculum that can help your struggling reader? If so, here is a straightforward guide to a tried and tested approach reading curriculum proven to help homeschoolers become stronger readers and give their parents the tools to use this method on their own at home. This method is so straightforward, you don’t need a degree in Education to understand how it works, why it works, and how to start using it with your child.

It’s called the PRIDE Reading Program and its based on the Orton-Gillingham method, and for many struggling readers, it makes all the difference in learning to read and future academic success. Here is how this homeschool reading curriculum for struggling readers will make a huge difference for you and your child this year!

What is Orton-Gillingham?

Orton-Gillingham is the first-ever approach designed to address the most common problems that struggling readers have with literacy. It’s been around since the 1930s, and numerous studies have proven how effective it is. Many different reading programs have the Orton-Gillingham approach at their core, and some schools use it to support students with dyslexia.

The Orton-Gillingham approach uses phonics to teach reading. Although it can seem like a reading buzzword, “phonics” is just the idea that sounds have both individual letters and groups of letters to represent them in writing.

Teaching phonics starts out simple–think teaching the short “a” sound by using a picture of an “apple”–and gets into much for complex groupings of letters, like the letter group “tion” making the sound “shun.” Readers use their knowledge of these sounds to be able to put together words by recognizing patterns.

Where Orton-Gillingham shines is that it teaches phonics in a way that uses more of a child’s senses than just seeing and hearing. Any parent will agree that children learn best through action and playing, and Orton-Gillingham blends sight, sound, touch, and movement to help children’s brains learn and master reading skills.

How Does Orton-Gillingham Help Struggling Readers?

 So how does it work? What does an Orton-Gillingham lesson actually look like?

One of the biggest hallmarks of Orton-Gillingham is the lessons are very structured. There are consistent activities for each lesson that teach your child reading skills and strategies. They do activities that focus on hearing the sound, writing the sound, and what the sound looks like in words. They write using more than just a pencil and paper, for example in shaving cream or on their hand. They play games using the sound.

Because the lessons are so structured, Orton-Gillingham requires a lot of teacher–in this case, parent–involvement. Parents guide their children through the various steps and activities in each lesson and check for understanding along the way. That is why this homeschool reading curriculum for struggling readers helps both the child and the parent. Both are involved in the entire reading process.

Here is a sample Orton-Gillingham lesson. These are not all of the steps, just a few to give you an idea of what an Orton-Gillingham lesson looks like in action!

Why Orton-Gillingham Works

 Written English can seem illogical and wild, but there really is a method to what seems like madness. Orton-Gillingham teaches reading in a way that allows children to build their knowledge of letters and sounds with the confidence because they understand the reasoning behind these patterns. They can then apply this knowledge in their reading and writing.

Orton-Gillingham bases this teaching approach off of the very specific way in which humans learn to speak English, so learning to read and write mirrors learning how children naturally learned to speak. As they learn a new sound, they see how it interacts with other sounds they already know.

Orton-Gillingham checks and reviews previous skills frequently, so parents can be confident in their child’s progress and know exactly what they need to keep reviewing with their child. This frequent and consistent review also helps children retain what they’ve already learned and connect it to new learning.

Why Homeschooling Families Love Orton-Gillingham

The PRIDE Reading Program is a homeschool curriculum for struggling readers and uses the Orton-Gillingham approach because it is so effective for so many struggling homeschoolers. Homeschooling parents love PRIDE because it takes the guesswork out of how to use Orton-Gillingham with their children.

Candice, who writes the blog A Touch of Homeschooling, explains, “The lessons are fully scripted for you. Not only is everything scripted out to tell you exactly what to say as you teach your child, but they let you know at what point your child is ready to move on to the next lesson. This was great because I never had to worry if I was rushing him through or if we should practice that lesson again. The reading curriculum lays everything out for you in detail.”

Another reason homeschooling parents love the Orton-Gillingham approach is because it targets their children’s individual reading needs. One such parent is Shawna, who writes the blog Different by Design. She writes, “This has made a HUGE difference in Gabe’s ability to retain his learning! I mean, I really cannot stress this too much. He’s remembering the next day and next what he’s learning. It’s actually pretty incredible!”

At the end of the day, Orton-Gillingham continues to be one of the most well-regarded approaches to reading instruction because it helps children when no other method or program seems to. Sarah from Homeschooling 4 Him puts it perfectly:

“I was so impressed with the way this curriculum makes the Orton-Gillingham method accessible to parents, even when we don’t have formal training in teaching kids how to read. The curriculum breaks down the complicated process of learning how to read into manageable pieces that seem doable even for struggling readers.”

I Have a Resource for You!

Thank you so much for reading my post today and learning more about a reading curriculum for struggling homeschoolers. You might also enjoy reading my previous posts:

Homeschooling with Dyslexia

Homeschooling with Auditory Processing

10 TellTale Signs of Dyslexia During Home Learning

Please don’t leave without checking out the PRIDE Reading Program. The PRIDE Reading Program is an Orton-Gillingham curriculum that is used by teachers, tutors, and homeschooling parents worldwide with great success and is a homeschool curriculum for struggling readers that gets RAVE reviews!

PRIDE Reading Program