Ravinia Reading Center Chicago on Orton-Gillingham

Ravinia Instruction: Where Children Receive Tailored Reading Help

The instructional methods conceptualized by neurologist Samuel Orton and educator Anna Gillingham, who turned Orton’s ideas into a curriculum, have made a tremendous impact on the lives of struggling readers worldwide. Dr. Orton laid much of the groundwork that connected the neurosciences to reading and teaching practices. Ravinia Reading Center Director Dr. Holly Shapiro is privileged to have studied Orton-Gillingham under some of the best, notably Jean Osman and Paula Dozier Rome who actually knew Dr. Orton. They were all an inspiration.

In 1999 Dr. Shapiro achieved Orton-Gillingham’s highest certification available from the Academy of Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and Educators. Dr. Shapiro was the only Orton-Gillingham Fellow in the state of Illinois at the time, and one of fewer than 150 in the entire world. Shortly thereafter, Ravinia Reading Center became an accredited site in accordance with the Academy's standards for both a clinic providing appropriate reading instruction and for Orton-Gillingham training.

In our North Chicago reading clinic, we have found Orton-Gillingham’s depth of understanding to be both effective for struggling readers, and accessible for most practitioners. Packaged materials based on the principles of Sam Orton & Anna Gillingham are especially beneficial to practitioners who lack formal study of language pathologies and reading disabilities in a university or research environment. Some of the programs are better than others, but they’re all dependent on the knowledge and skills of their practitioners.

In recent years, Ravinia Reading Center has invested considerably in the knowledge and talent of its staff. We employ only speech-language pathologists certified by the ASHA, with graduate degrees or better. The academic and clinical qualifications of our teaching staff allow Ravinia Reading Center to offer customized instruction tailored specifically to the student.

As a growing reading center, the methods developed by Orton-Gillingham gave us the instructional platform to build on. But there’s more work to be done. To give us the flexibility to tailor instruction to the student and to allow us to keep up with advances with in the field of reading education, as of 2009 Dr. Shapiro has elected not to pursue recertification as a Fellow of the Academy.

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