EdwardsOGThe science of reading for all.
EdwardsOG
Before my first Edwards Orton-Gillingham training in 2014, I was a speech-language pathologist (SLP) in a public middle and high school. More than half of my caseload in any given year was filled with students with language-based learning disabilities. As an SLP, I had been trained to target phonological awareness skills and reading comprehension, but I was clueless when it came to how to teach students how to read. I quickly realized that plying my students with reading comprehension strategies when they were unable to read the texts given to them in their classrooms was a fruitless endeavor. A speech supervisor mentioned OG training and Ann Edwards. I was about to move from a middle school to an elementary school, and I was eager to get trained before I started working with younger students who were in the process of learning to read.
I completed the Associate’s training in 2014 and became certified at the Associate’s level in 2017. The entire time I was still working full-time as an SLP in the schools and seeing students privately after school. In 2017, I decided to start my private practice focusing on language and literacy. I officially resigned from the DOE, and within a year-and-a-half to two years, my practice was completely full. OG allowed me to take the risk of leaving my very stable, secure position at the DOE to strike out on my own. It has helped me establish a flourishing private practice where I get to work on the cases that inspire and invigorate me. But most importantly, it has armed me with the knowledge and ability to help any student who comes to me struggling with literacy. There is a power and a joy in OG work. My students feel it, too. Countless students have said to me, “Why don’t they teach this way in school?” The decision to start along the OG path back in 2014 changed the entire course of my career for the better. I was trained at the Certified level in 2019 with Ann, who is quite simply a master trainer. I cannot imagine being led along this path by anyone but Ann and her co-trainers. To say that I am thankful to them all is an understatement.