Not Seeing Progress: What Should I Do?

What Can I Do? Start here!

As you begin using the IMSE Orton-Gillingham approach for morphology instruction, including the full instructional cycle incorporating the five pillars of literacy instruction, providing differentiation and appropriate scaffolds, and collecting, evaluating, and adjusting based on student mastery, you should see significant gains with your students. However, what if you’re not? 

Here are some tips to help you stay on track.

• Be sure that you are not cutting corners and using each strategy with fidelity.
  • Sometimes teachers forget to plan an experience or concrete object for each new concept introduced. Choosing and manipulating an object that reinforces your new morpheme is perhaps the most important part of the multi-sensory experience.  This is the opportunity to bring in a real-world object or experience to help your student make a connection to the morpheme and its meaning.
  • Use a dry-erase whiteboard or other tactile learning tools to rehearse the morpheme concepts. This is another step teachers may overlook.  Perhaps a gel board or an iPad app is being used instead. Alongside multi-sensory engagement (hear it, say it, spell it, write it), the tactile connection allows the student to use the nerve endings in the tips of their fingers which helps strengthen mastery of concepts. 
  • Be sure that you are fingertapping words correctly in the Application section of the lesson plan.  There should never be more than 3 taps per syllable.  Students should fingertap with their offhand and be ready to write with their dominant hand.  Always go left to right.  With multisyllabic words, be sure to fingertap one syllable at a time. Consider including a phonemic awareness activity beforehand as a warm-up to encoding. 
  • Don’t forget to stand when armtapping Red Words. These steps go from gross motor to fine motor, and standing is important!  Be sure that your students are armtapping with the correct hand and going in the correct direction.  They should be holding their red word in their offhand and armtapping left to right. 
  • Be sure to follow your “Purple flip chart” and implement the steps in sequence.  Don’t skip parts of any instructional sequence to ensure it’s taught with fidelity. 
  • Spend time every day on phonemic awareness at least through 2nd grade and likely beyond with struggling readers. 
• Assess, assess, assess! 
  • Be sure to assess before working with your class or student.  For general education teachers, you should be benchmarking three times a year to see how your students are progressing. If someone isn’t progressing, this might be an indication that Tier 2 intervention is needed. 
  • Intervention specialists and tutors should be progress monitoring at least monthly or perhaps even weekly, depending on your student’s needs. This will help determine whether the intervention is working or not.  Using a fluency assessment is a good way to progress monitor.  
  • For Tier 2 Intervention, use IMSE instructional sequences as an intervention for 30 minutes, 3-5 days per week with a group size of 5-8 students.  Your intervention should continue for at least 8-15 weeks before making decisions on moving the student or trying a new intervention. 
  • For Tier 3 Intervention, use IMSE instructional sequences as an intervention for a minimum of 60-120 minutes daily with a group size of 1-3.  The intervention should continue for a minimum of 20 weeks before making decisions on moving the student or trying a new intervention. 
  • You should assess the new concept every week taught to ensure mastery and to guide future instruction.