Multi-Sensory Experience

One of the key components in IMSE’s Orton-Gillingham or any Structured Literacy methodology is direct instruction. Instruction should be explicit, systematic, sequential, and multi-sensory. The same or similar routine is followed when teaching morphemes. Students are never guessing, but rather teachers are instructing students directly. Using your Purple Flip Chart or Morphology Plus Teacher’s Guide, follow the steps for “Teaching A New Concept: Morphemes.” 

Here are some reminders: 

• There are two parts to Teaching a New Concept: 

1. 1. The Multi-Sensory Experience is where you make connections with students by teaching, modeling, and practicing. This can be more challenging when teaching morphemes. Get creative. For example, when teaching hydr-, have a water bottle close by and indicate that you need to hydrate or you feel dehydrated. Allow students to make real-world connections. 
   2. Application of the New Concept is where students put what they learned into writing words and sentences. This can be done through dictation, CLOZE activities, or other IMSE writing activities to apply the concept in writing. 

• Follow the steps in the Teacher’s Guide. However, if you need more of an explanation of the steps, read the Morphology Plus Training Manual under “Morphology.”  
• For general education, we typically teach 1-3 morphemes per week depending on the ability of the students.  
• For intervention, assessment scores and the ability of the students will drive teacher instruction. For older students, you may be teaching 1-2 morphemes per week. For other students, you may need to extend the concept into a second week. Use the Tiers of RTI as a guide