Step 2 and 3) Orton-Gillingham Visual and Auditory Drill - Deep Dive - Routines

Welcome to Steps 2 and 3 of the UFLI structured literacy lesson! We will do a deep dive of the Visual Drill, Blending Drill, and Auditory Drill. Parents can easily do the Visual Drill and Auditory Drill at home with minimal materials and it only takes 5-10 minutes a day, sometimes even less!

Step 2) Visual Drill

The visual drill is very simple. Show the student the flashcard or google slide of the written letter(s) and the student says what sound it makes. Each time the student learns a new phonics pattern, it is added to the visual drill. Over time, more advanced phonics patterns will be added to the visual drill. For example, when working on vowel teams, as the student sees the graphemes 'ai' on the flashcard, they will say the long 'a' sound, as in the first sound in 'ate'.

The visual drill is key for reviewing previous learned phonics spelling patterns. As the saying goes, if you don’t use it, you lose it. It is vital to review so that students retain the new concepts they have learned!

Blending Drill

Students read words with previously learned spelling patterns, changing one letter at a time to create new words. This is often called word chaining, because you are changing one “link” at a time to change the word. Being able to manipulate sounds and letters helps with automaticity. I like to use this virtual blending board from UFLI. (https://research.dwi.ufl.edu/op.n/file/bca9ju45kvvrvoan/?embed&fbclid=IwAR0xziIDWq8RDOkOG-P8G4EQ0d3dpamYRD2XzKqSjZ0aBQTAbDriYTZtpBs )

Step 3) Auditory Drill

All you need is a whiteboard, dry-erase marker, and an eraser for this activity. The teacher says a sound, and the student responds by writing the graphemes (written letters) that make that sound on their whiteboard. It is important to remind students to say the sound as they write the grapheme.

This activity can get challenging when students start to learn 4 or 5 ways to spell one sound. For example, there are 5 ways to make the long e sound: e, y, ee, ea, ey. I like to turn it into a game…If a student writes all the correct ways to spell the specific sound, we do a 5 second dance party in our chairs before we move on to the next sound.

It is a good idea to ask tutors/teachers for a copy of the list of sounds so that parents know which graphemes their child is expected to know.

Keeping a good pace with the visual and auditory drill is key to keep students engaged!