Structured Literacy

Chartwell teachers use an Orton-Gillingham based approach that incorporates systematic phonics and applied linguistics. Students learn the alphabetic principle including initial decoding and encoding stages of reading and writing and more advanced stages, including syllable types, morphemes, syntax, semantics, and grammatical structures of language and our writing system. 

Our structured literacy classes provide remediation for students whose learning profiles indicate poor phonological and/or orthographic processing development and/or working memory and processing speed deficits which have led to poor decoding and encoding (word reading and spelling) skills.

Middle School Structured Literacy

Diagnostic assessments inform instruction of reading skills and areas of strength and weakness. Through direct instruction in small, homogeneously grouped classes of no more than six students, teachers pace instruction based on student mastery. Instructors follow a highly structured approach that teaches concepts following a specific scope and sequence. Our structured literacy approach includes direct, explicit, sequential multisensory instruction for teaching literacy skills. Instructors use daily progress monitoring and move at the pace determined by the class.  Students develop automaticity and mastery at the independent level.

Students first master the foundational skills of decoding and spelling, and then continue to work on advanced Orton Gillingham concepts with advanced work in multisyllabic words, spelling patterns, and a study of Greek and Latin roots, prefixes, and suffixes. Students develop skills and strategies to improve word knowledge and grammatical concepts, in addition to comprehension strategies necessary to think critically about text.