How the Orton Gillingham Math Curriculum Actually Works in Practice
The Orton Gillingham Math Curriculum is a structured literacy approach that has been adapted for mathematics instruction. It targets students with dyslexia and other language-based learning differences by making math instruction multisensory, systematic, and explicit. The method borrows directly from the reading intervention model developed by Samuel Orton and later refined by Anna Gillingham, applying those same pedagogical principles to number sense, operations, and problem solving. What makes it different from a standard math program is the emphasis on verbalizing concepts. A student isn't just told that 7 times 8 equals 56. They hear the teacher say it, they say it out loud, they may trace the numbers in sand or on a textured surface, and they connect the abstract symbol to a concrete representation. This reduces the cognitive load that happens when a student with dyslexia tries to decode written math problems while simultaneously processing numerical relationships.
Implementing the Orton Gillingham Math Curriculum Step by Step
Start with assessment. Before you touch any lesson material, you need to understand where the student actually is. Most people skip this and jump into a leveled textbook, which doesn't work with this approach. Use a diagnostic tool like the CTOPM (Comprehensive Test of Procedural and Mathematical skills) or simply sit down with the student and have them explain their thinking out loud while solving a few problems. The goal is to find the gap, not to grade them. Once you know the gap, break the skill into the smallest possible increment. If a student can't multiply two-digit numbers, the issue might not be multiplication at all. It could be that they don't have automaticity with single-digit facts, or they don't understand place value strongly enough to carry properly. Diagnose the root cause. I spent three weeks working with a seventh grader who couldn't add fractions. The actual problem was that she misread the word "of" in fraction word problems because of her dyslexia. She thought "one half of twelve" meant one plus half plus twelve. Once we addressed the reading component separately, the math instruction became straightforward. That took about forty minutes total instead of months of repetitive fraction drills. Teach using the multisensory framework. That means engaging visual, auditory, and kinesthetic-tactile channels simultaneously. When introducing place value, use base-ten blocks while the student says the number names aloud. When teaching addition with regrouping, have the student trace the algorithm on a manila card while saying each step: "ones column, add, if more than nine, carry the one, move to tens column." The verbal component is critical because it creates a secondary memory trace.
Practice should be daily and brief. Fifteen to twenty minutes of focused, structured practice is more effective than an hour-long session. Students with dyslexia experience cognitive fatigue faster during math tasks that require decoding text. Short, repeated exposure builds the neural pathways without burning them out. Always move from concrete to representational to abstract. The C-R-A sequence is non-negotiable. Concrete means using physical manipulatives. Representational means drawing pictures or diagrams. Abstract means working with numbers and symbols alone. Skipping this progression is the most common mistake I see. Teachers get impatient and move to abstract problems too quickly, which defeats the entire purpose of the approach. Counter-intuitive insight: Many educators assume that giving a dyslexic student extra time on math tests is sufficient accommodation. It isn't. Extra time helps, but the real issue is often that the student is expending so much mental energy decoding the word problem that there's nothing left for the actual computation. The workaround is to read the problem aloud to the student or provide a printed version with wide spacing and larger font. This alone can double their effective working memory capacity during the test.
Get the Full Details
Another thing beginners consistently miss: the Orton Gillingham Math Curriculum is not about slow pacing. It's about explicit pacing. Every concept must be taught directly and thoroughly before moving on, but once mastery is achieved, acceleration is appropriate. I had a student who mastered fourth-grade math concepts in six weeks because we addressed his gaps systematically. Rushing through without diagnosis would have taken him six months. Proper diagnosis actually speeds things up. Here are the practical limitations you need to know about. The approach requires significant teacher training and preparation time. A typical session plan takes 30 to 45 minutes to prepare if you're doing it correctly with manipulatives and multisensory materials. It doesn't scale well to large classrooms. A single teacher managing twenty-five students cannot deliver this level of individualized instruction. It works best in one-on-one or small group settings of three to five students maximum. There's also a documentation burden. You need to track every skill, every error pattern, and every mastery checkpoint. Without rigorous record-keeping, it's easy to accidentally repeat material the student already knows or skip ahead before consolidation has occurred. I recommend using a simple spreadsheet with columns for skill, date introduced, date mastered, and error patterns. This takes about ten minutes per student per week.
The curriculum doesn't address students with significant working memory deficits on its own. If a student can hold only two pieces of information in their working memory at once, even multisensory instruction will hit a ceiling. In those cases, consider pairing this approach with cognitive training or occupational therapy support before expecting math gains.
Resources and Materials
The primary resource for this approach is the book "Math Understanding" by Dr. JoAnn Whitworth and Dr. Sally Shaywitz, which specifically adapts Orton Gillingham principles for mathematics. Another solid reference is "The Good News About Dyslexia and Math" by Melissa Conway-Stegmann. For downloadable lesson templates and progress monitoring tools, the International Dyslexia Association website maintains a resource library that includes some free materials. Khan Academy's intervention track also incorporates some Orton Gillingham-aligned strategies at no cost, though it lacks the multisensory component that makes the full curriculum effective. The biggest bottleneck most people hit is material availability. Multisensory math manipulatives that are specifically sized and colored for dyslexic learners aren't widely sold in regular educational supply stores. I ended up ordering from three different specialized vendors and making my own textured number cards using foam sheets and sandpaper adhesive. It took about two weekends and roughly $80 in supplies, but once built, they lasted for years across multiple students. If you're a parent trying to use this at home, don't try to build the full curriculum from scratch. You'll burn out in a month. Start with the Whitworth book, follow one unit at a time, and use free online manipulatives like Base Ten Blocks from virtual math tool sites while you invest in the physical materials. Expect the first six weeks to feel slow. Mastery typically shows up around week eight or nine if the diagnosis was accurate and the practice is consistent. After that, the trajectory usually improves noticeably.
