Is Orton-Gillingham Training Worth It? A Guide for Certified Teachers in Canada

A parent asks whether you are Orton-Gillingham trained, and you realize the honest answer is "sort of." You know phonics and you have taught struggling readers for years, but the name on the course matters to families of children with dyslexia. Before you pay for training, it helps to know what each level gives you and what the research actually says.

This guide covers what the Orton-Gillingham approach is, which level of training a tutor needs, what one Canadian course costs, and how to use the training so a family can see their child's progress.

What is the Orton-Gillingham approach?

Orton-Gillingham is a way of teaching reading and spelling that is explicit, step by step and multisensory. Students see, say, hear and write each sound pattern, and the tutor plans every lesson from what the student showed in the one before.

It is one of many programs and approaches that sit under the structured literacy umbrella, alongside other commercial programs (Dyslexia Canada). A typical Canadian practitioner course covers visual, auditory, kinesthetic and tactile (VAKT) teaching, establishing a baseline through diagnostic teaching, sound-symbol relationships, sight words, spelling rules, morphology, blending, fluency and comprehension (REACH Centre, 2026).

If you already teach systematic phonics, much of this will feel familiar. The course adds a set lesson routine, a fixed sequence of patterns and supervised practice with one student.

Is Orton-Gillingham training worth it for a certified teacher?

For a teacher who wants to tutor students with dyslexia one on one, it usually is, as long as you take a level that includes supervised practice. Families are told to ask about it, and the course gives you a shared language with parents and a lesson structure you can repeat week after week.

Dyslexia Canada advises parents to ask a tutor about the type and level of training they have received, and notes that families can often look a tutor up with the organization that certified them (Dyslexia Canada). In other words, the families you most want to reach are already checking.

Demand is also shaped by what happens at school. In Ontario, the province has updated the language curriculum, made early reading screening universal and funded boards to choose from a list of approved interventions, but there is still no provincial policy on intervention, progress monitoring or reporting (Dyslexia Canada, 2026). That gap is one reason some families look for outside help. Our post on what the Right to Read report means for families explains the background parents bring to a first call.

It is not a requirement to tutor reading. Your teaching certificate, classroom experience and any reading or special education courses already count. The training is worth it when you plan to make reading intervention a real part of your tutoring, not as a badge for a profile.

What does the research say about Orton-Gillingham?

The evidence is encouraging but thinner than the name recognition suggests. A 2021 meta-analysis in Exceptional Children found that Orton-Gillingham interventions did not produce a statistically significant improvement in foundational skills such as phonics, fluency and spelling for students with or at risk for word-level reading difficulties. The average effect size was positive (0.22), and the authors called for more high-quality research (Stevens et al., 2021).

Closer to home, a 2025 study interviewed volunteer tutors and tutors in training at a tuition-free Orton-Gillingham tutoring centre in Halifax. They reported that the tutoring improved their students' reading and their confidence (Hollis and Harkins, 2025). That is the tutors' view rather than a measured comparison, so read it as useful context, not proof.

The practical takeaway: the principles behind the approach, explicit and systematic teaching of sound patterns, are the core of structured literacy. What the research does not settle is whether one branded version beats another. That makes your own progress data more important than the name of the course.

Which level of Orton-Gillingham training do you need to tutor?

To tutor students with dyslexia one on one, aim for practitioner or associate-level coursework followed by a supervised practicum. An introductory course is a good start for classroom teaching, but it does not prepare you to plan individual lessons on your own.

Here is what one Canadian provider requires. REACH Centre's Orton-Gillingham Practitioner course adds more than 60 training hours on top of its foundations course, starts with about 20 hours of pre-study, and asks for a BA, B.Ed. or speech-language pathology certification plus a criminal record check. Completing a supervised practicum is required for professional certification with OG Canada. Its live online course for 2026 to 2027 costs $1,550, with a $255 materials package (REACH Centre, 2026). Other providers set their own hours and prices, so compare practicum requirements before fees.

Ontario teachers can also deepen their reading expertise through the Ontario College of Teachers' Reading Additional Qualification courses (Ontario College of Teachers, Reading Part I course guideline). A Reading or Special Education AQ is not Orton-Gillingham training, but the two work well together, and families value both.

How to use Orton-Gillingham training in a tutoring session

Your course supplies the lesson routine. These habits make it work in a tutoring arrangement, where you see the student once or twice a week and the parent wants to know whether it is helping:

• Start with a baseline. In the first session, check which sounds, patterns and sight words the student knows. Write it down so you can show change later.
• Set goals you can measure. "Reads and spells closed-syllable words with short vowels" is a goal you can check. "Improves reading" is not.
• Review every week. Begin each lesson with a quick review of earlier patterns, and keep anything the student misses in the next lesson.
• Share short progress notes. Two or three lines after each session, plus a fuller update every few weeks, show the family what changed.
• Stay in your lane. You teach reading. You don't diagnose dyslexia or comment on whether a child needs an assessment. Suggest the family talk to the school or a qualified professional.

Measurable goals matter because they are often missing. In a 2026 performance audit, Ontario's Auditor General found that at least 90% of the annual learning goals reviewed in IEPs at each board lacked measurable criteria, which limits the ability to assess students' progress (Office of the Auditor General of Ontario, 2026). If the family shares the IEP, use its accommodations, and offer them a clear reading goal of your own they can bring to the next school meeting. Our structured literacy refresher for tutors covers the early reading screening results parents may show you, and the guide to tutoring students with autism explains how to work alongside an IEP.

In person means at the student's home or at a public library. If you're not comfortable going to a family's home, you can choose the library. Online works too: many Orton-Gillingham activities, such as tapping out sounds or tracing letters, only need simple materials on the student's side of the screen.

Tutoring with Connect Education

Every tutor on Connect Education is a licensed teacher in good standing. Families who mention dyslexia or reading difficulties are matched with tutors whose training fits, so list your Orton-Gillingham level, whether you completed a practicum, and any Reading or Special Education AQs on your profile. Read why specialist tutors get better results, and check what certified teachers charge by province before you set your rate.

You choose the students you take and where you tutor. Learn how to become a tutor, see how tutoring with us works, or create your tutor profile so families looking for a reading specialist can find you.