Princeton Schools Awarded Orton-Gillingham Accreditation For Teaching

PRINCETON, NJ – Princeton Public Schools recently received the Orton-Gillingham accreditation from the Institute for Multisensory Education, becoming one of the few school districts in the country to receive the certification.

The Orton-Gillingham approach is used to teach reading and is considered one of the most successful and innovative techniques available.

School Superintendent Carol Kelley said it was “wonderful news” for early learners.

“Learning to read is the key to attaining academic success and by incorporating Orton-Gillingham techniques into our program we will help all of our students achieve their full potential,” Kelley said. “This boost to our early elementary program aligns perfectly with our goal of supporting the needs of early learners, age 3 to Grade 3.”

The Orton-Gillingham approach is a multi-sensory, structured, sequential approach to teaching reading. During the fall, PPS trained more than 20 staff members from the elementary schools and over the summer PPS will offer training to all kindergarten and first-grade teachers.

Kimberly Tew, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction, said that the Orton-Gillingham method improves students' ability to read and “read to learn” when studying other subjects.

"The feedback from the Orton-Gillingham training this fall has been tremendously positive, and our interventionists are already using the program and strategies with students and reporting very strong results," Tew said.

By using this method, districts are able to reduce the number of students who read below grade-level or need Individualized Educational Plans (IEPs) or other academic supports.

“If you can help students early, the data shows that you dramatically reduce the number of students who read below grade level,” Tew said.

Training at PPS has been headed by Sarah Moore, Supervisor of Elementary Education.

"I would like to thank Sarah Moore for the work she has done to share this knowledge with our educators,” Tew said. "We are thrilled to have this new accreditation for our district in recognition of the hard work teachers are putting in to strengthen our foundational literacy practices."

Apart from incorporating Orton-Gillingham into the program, PPS has also planned other changes in the way it teaches reading:

• In the spring, PPS will move to Early Bird, an early literacy screener from Harvard and Boston Children's Hospital, which identifies students who need additional foundational reading support before deficits can occur.
• In the summer PPS will train all Kindergarten and first-grade teachers in Orton-Gillingham and will roll out a new structured literacy block to replace “Fundations.” This daily block will incorporate phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension study.
• Heggerty will be added to kindergarten and first-grade classrooms to promote additional phonological awareness work.

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