At Mayerson Academy, we offer learning services to change-agent educators, helping them to feel empowered and confident in their expanded capacities. There is no greater joy than when we receive feedback from them about how their engagement with their learning is making a positive impact in their lives and in the lives that they touch.
Katherine Spengler shares the impact that Mayerson Acacemy’s oline Orton-Gillingham program has had on her and her students.
In 2016, we began offering an entirely online version of their IMSLEC & IDA* accredited Orton-Gillingham (O-G) Multisensory Reading Program. Graduates who are certified by Mayerson Academy at the Teaching/Practitioner Level of either the online or face-to-face programs are eligible to become certified at the Practitioner Level from IDA. Katherine Spengler, one of our first O-G graduates, just became eligible and wrote to us about her experience with the program and the impact that O-G has had on her and her students.
Dear Mayerson Academy,
I am writing to you to share my appreciation for the quality of the online learning experiences I had as a student in two Mayerson Academy Courses: Orton-Gillingham Multisensory Reading Practicum I Online and Orton-Gillingham Multisensory Reading Practicum II Online.
I enrolled in Practicum I for several reasons. First, I am a doctoral student in education with a focus on the experiences of students with reading disorders in general education classrooms. Orton-Gillingham is referenced in numerous journal articles and as an elementary classroom teacher for 10 years in the New York City Public Schools and a literacy consultant for 18 years to school districts around the nation, I had little experience with O-G. For me to understand the research literature, I decided to pursue O-G instruction and selected Mayerson Academy rather than an O-G course offered locally in San Diego because Mayerson’s program is an IDA Accredited Program.
Second, I am the parent of a 5th grader diagnosed with dyslexia and dysgraphia and was curious about O-G’s multisensory approach and how an online course would help me learn to teach children with dyslexia.
Third, I aspire to be a reading clinician once I earn my PhD and want to be able to provide high quality O-G lessons.
Everything about Practicum I exceeded my expectations. I was paired with Carol Duke who is an incredibly supportive mentor. Through phone calls, quick responses to emails, detailed feedback on my lessons through Edthena (what a fantastic platform!), generous sharing of reading sheets, and a terrific sense of humor, I felt supported by Carol every step of the way. I earned my masters in 1993 from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1993, in the midst of whole language. My knowledge of phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, syllabication, etc was sorely lacking. The online coursework that I could reference throughout Practicum is rich with information and practical application strategies. I cannot believe how much I did not know about teaching literacy, despite 25 years in literacy education. I was impressed with how much my student learned in 16 sessions and how well he responded to the lesson pacing, repetition, and multisensory strategies.
Katherine’s Practicum II student’s data revealed significant growth.
After 16 sessions, I knew I needed to enroll in Practicum II so that I could gain more experience over 64 sessions with guidance from Carol. Again, the online forum surpassed my expectations. Carol went through all of my lesson plans and gave me feedback before and after each filming. She answered questions that arose as I worked with another 5th grader over the course of 8 months. I made extensive use of the OG Connector resources, especially reading sheets and the videos of master O-G teachers demonstrating error corrections. I’m delighted that the resources will still be available to me.
The Mayerson academy online courses made it possible for me to learn in depth and apply everything to lessons with real children while receiving feedback from an expert. My Practicum II student’s data revealed significant growth.
The courses also prepared me to pass the CEERI exam which helps me get one step closer to being an IDA Certified Dyslexia Practitioner.
