Tutoring and Intervention · Video
What Multisensory Learning Actually Looks Like
Not a learning style. A child sees the letter, says the sound, hears their own voice and writes the shape — in the same moment, on purpose.
What multisensory structured learning is
Multisensory structured learning teaches reading by engaging sight, sound, touch and movement at the same moment, in an explicit and cumulative sequence. A child sees a letter, says its sound, hears their own voice and traces the shape together, so the link between sound and symbol is built through several channels at once rather than through the eyes alone.
It is not the same thing as a “learning style”. The idea that each child is a visual or auditory or kinesthetic learner, and should be taught in that one channel, has not held up in research. Multisensory instruction is the opposite claim: every child uses all the channels, and a child with dyslexia needs more of them running together, not fewer.
Key takeaways
There is no OG box to buy. It is a set of principles — explicit, systematic, cumulative, multisensory, diagnostic — and Wilson, Barton and others are programmes built on them. This is why “we use OG” tells you less than it sounds like.
Every child uses every channel. The method runs them simultaneously so the sound-symbol link is reinforced from several directions, rather than matching a child to one supposed channel.
The difficulty is in connecting sounds to letters, not in reasoning. Children with dyslexia routinely understand a text read aloud to them that they cannot decode on the page.
Number sense — the feel for quantity, magnitude and sequence — can be built the same way. Most schools respond to maths difficulty with more drill, which practises the gap rather than closing it.
Explicit, systematic phonics is one of the best-supported findings in education. The specific named programmes built on it are mostly evaluated by their own publishers. Ask what a school does in a lesson, not which binder is on the shelf.
Chapters
- 0:00 Why traditional teaching fails dyslexic learners
- 0:34 Dyslexia is not an intelligence problem
- 0:51 How dyslexic brains process language differently
- 1:16 Multisensory structured learning: the core solution
- 1:45 How visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning work together
- 2:13 Neuroplasticity: building new reading pathways
- 2:28 The Wilson Reading System: a step-by-step approach
- 2:58 Teaching math and number sense through multisensory instruction
- 3:37 Creating a supportive learning environment
- 4:03 Recognizing the strengths of dyslexic learners
- 4:15 Conclusion: unlocking every learner's potential
What a multisensory lesson actually does
The abstract version of this is unhelpful. Here is the concrete version: one child, one sound, four channels, about fifteen seconds.
- See it. The teacher shows the letter or letter team. The child looks at the shape, on its own, without a word around it to guess from.
- Say it. The child produces the sound out loud and feels where it is made — lips, teeth, tongue, voice on or off. That physical feedback is part of the information, not a flourish.
- Hear it. They hear their own voice say it. Hearing yourself is different from hearing a teacher, and it is what links the sound to the act of producing it.
- Write it. They trace or write the letter while saying the sound again. The hand movement carries the shape; doing it simultaneously is what binds the two together.
And then the part that makes it “structured”. The sounds come in a fixed order, each one building on the last, with nothing introduced until the thing underneath it is secure — and the teacher checks whether it is secure before moving on, rather than following a calendar.
Orton-Gillingham, Wilson, and what the difference is
These two names get used as if they were alternatives. They are not. One is the approach; the other is one of the programmes built on it.
| Orton-Gillingham | Wilson Reading System | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | An approach — a set of principles for teaching reading | A published programme built on those principles |
| Can you buy it | No. There is no single OG product; training and fidelity vary by provider | Yes. Defined materials, lesson plans and a certification route |
| Sequence | Set by the trained teacher, adjusted to the child | Fixed scope and sequence, twelve steps, same order for everyone |
| Flexibility | High — diagnostic and prescriptive lesson by lesson | Lower by design; the structure is the point |
| What to ask a school | “Trained by whom, to what level, and who supervises?” | “Certified, and are you following the full sequence?” |
The same approach, applied to math
Math difficulty gets the same response almost everywhere: more problems, more drill, more time. If the gap is in number sense, drill practises the gap.
The feel for quantity, magnitude and sequence — knowing that 8 is nearer 10 than 3 is, without counting — is what later arithmetic is built on. A child who is missing it can still memorise facts, and the memorisation collapses as soon as the problems get longer.
A child who recites times tables fluently and cannot tell you whether an answer is reasonable has learned the output and not the structure. It passes tests for a while.
Blocks, number lines, drawn representations and symbols used together, so the symbol attaches to a quantity the child can see and move rather than to a remembered string.
A structured, sequenced multisensory approach to math, developed for students who need the underlying number sense built rather than drilled. It is an established programme; like most math interventions it has not been evaluated in peer-reviewed efficacy research, and the reason to use it is the structure of the instruction rather than a published trial.
Questions parents ask
Is multisensory learning the same as learning styles?
No, and they are close to opposites. The learning-styles idea says each child has one preferred channel and should be taught in it; research has not supported that. Multisensory instruction says every child uses all the channels, and that running sight, sound, speech and movement together at the same moment strengthens the link between a sound and its spelling. Nobody is being sorted into a type.
What is the difference between Orton-Gillingham and Wilson?
Orton-Gillingham is an approach — a set of principles for teaching reading explicitly, systematically and multisensorily. Wilson is a published programme built on those principles, with its own fixed sequence, materials and certification. Nobody owns the term Orton-Gillingham, so any provider can use it, which is why the useful questions are who trained the teacher, to what level, and who checks that the lessons follow the sequence.
Can a dyslexic child also struggle with math?
Frequently, and for two different reasons that need separating. Some children have dyscalculia alongside dyslexia — a distinct difficulty with number sense. Others have intact number sense but hit trouble with word problems, multi-step instructions and the reading embedded in a math lesson. The instruction is different in each case, which is why an assessment should look at both rather than assuming the math difficulty is a reading difficulty wearing a hat.
How long before we see a difference?
The honest answer is that it depends on where the gap started and how often instruction happens, and anyone quoting you a fixed number of weeks is guessing. What is more reliable is the order things change in: resistance drops first, then a willingness to attempt unfamiliar words, then accuracy, then fluency, then scores. If several months of consistent instruction have produced no change in the first two, the fit is wrong and it should be looked at rather than waited out.
Can I do this at home?
You can do some of it, and the part that helps most is not the part parents expect. Reading aloud to your child, talking about words and playing with sounds all support the work. The structured sequence itself is harder to run at home, because it depends on knowing what to teach next and recognising when something is not yet secure — that is the trained part. A reasonable split is that school or a specialist runs the sequence and home protects the child’s willingness to keep going.
Transcript
Video Transcript
About the Author
Dr. Leah Skinner, Ed.D.
Dr. Leah Skinner holds a Doctor of Education in Reading, Literacy and Assessment, a Master of Education with a specialization in dyslexia, and is a Certified Dyslexia Therapist and Special Education Advocate with over 22 years of experience. As the founder of READ Academy of Sacramento and a mother of five neurodivergent sons, four of whom have dyslexia, she brings both clinical expertise and personal understanding to every family she works with.
This video is based on the full article, Sacramento Multisensory Structured Learning: Tools to Unlock the Mind of a Dyslexic Learner.
Find out what your child's instruction should look like
A comprehensive assessment identifies which parts of decoding, spelling and number sense have broken down — which is what decides the sequence, the intensity and the method. The programme comes after that, not before it.
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