Wellspring Learning Center

Your Child will learn to read, write and spell...believe it....commit to it....and IT WILL HAPPEN.

Scientifically proven methods of teaching like Orton-Gillingham get the best results.

Before a child with dyslexia can learn to read, they must learn how to read.

Orton-Gillingham Approach



Orton-Gillingham is an approach to teaching individuals who have difficulty in reading, writing and spelling that is associated with the condition of dyslexia.  It is better characterized as an approach an not a method, system or technique.  As such, it requires a well-trained professional to be used properly.  When applied properly, it is a broad approach with both depth and flexibility. 

The foundation of the Orton-Gillingham approach is based upon a body of knowledge that has been tested and validated over the past 70 years.  Orton-Gillingham has also incorporated the scientific evidence about how people learn to read and write, why some people have difficulties reading/writing and the best instructional practices that help people with these difficulties learn to read and write. 

The Orton-Gillingham approach is named after Samuel T. Orton and Anna Gillingham.  Samuel Orton was a neuropsychiatrist and pathologist who focused attention on reading difficulties and language processing problems.  He combined neuroscientific information with the principles of remediation and in 1925 identified the dyslexic condition as an educational problem.  Anna Gillingham was a psychologist and educator.  She worked with Dr. Orton to compile and publish the materials that eventually became known as the Orton-Gillingham Approach.

The Orton-Gillingham Approach is often used in a one-on-one teacher-student setting however; it is often used in small group settings.  The Approach has been adopted for class-room instruction with small classes of students.  The Approach has also been adapted for use with students who have difficulty learning mathematics.

The Orton-Gillingham Approach focused on the specific learning needs of the individual student.  Students with dyslexia need more help in sorting, recognizing and organizing the elements of language used in reading, writing and spelling.  While non-dyslexic learners quickly master these elements of language, dyslexic students need to be taught the language elements explicitly and systematically.


                             Dyslexic students just need to be taught differently.

Lindamood-Bell Approach

The Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing program improves phonemic awareness.  The program emphasizes helping individuals improve their understanding of the mouth actions that produce speech sounds.  By understanding the mouth actions, individuals can self0correct in reading, spelling and speech. 

The Lindamood Visualizing and Verbalizing is a learning program that helps students improve reading comprehension, language comprehension, and higher order thinking skills by developing the ability to create mental imagery for the language they read and hear, and to create an imaged gestalt – imagery for the big picture, or whole. This mental imagery for language is called concept imagery, and it is essential to comprehension skills.

Individuals with weak concept imagery may have difficulty comprehending what they read, even if their reading skills are otherwise unimpaired. These individuals may have trouble following directions, or expressing their own ideas in an organized manner. They may be accused of being lazy, or of not trying hard enough, because words directed at them seem to go in one ear and out the other. V/V® instruction can help these individuals connect language to mental imagery and enable them to make a significant, measurable improvement in language comprehension.