Kindergarten reading proficiency in Durango School district jumped 39% in just one year after the district overhauled. How it teaches young children to read. You are watching the Local News Network, brought to you by Durango Gelato Coffee and Tea, and Tofoya Barra and Associates. I am Sadie Smith. The district adopted the Orton-Gillingham approach. A reading Method first developed in the 1930s to help students with dyslexia. Today it's a mainstream strategy for all readers focused on multisensory instruction and phonics.

One thing that sets MZ and o Orton-Gillingham methodology, methodology apart is the multi-sensory aspect of it. So we try to combine language by eyes, language by ear, language by mouth, and language by hand. Using all of those neurological pathways in a child's brain in order to reinforce

The process, includes listening to sounds and saying the sounds and names of letters while writing them. I students practice early skills through repetition to make reading automatic and engaging.

We did a lot of repetition. Repetition, and we were like t, h, e, the

Multisensory strategies you cite, hearing, touch, and movement to help students connect, spoken and written language.

It's really incredible. With the Wharton Gillingham methodology, just the ability to basically rewire the brain. So kiddos who struggle, they often, their brain is just taking a different path neurologically, and so through these different methods, we're ultimately rewiring and and making it more automatic for them. As both readers and writers,

Students also learn correct letter formation through kinesthetic and tactile exercises with movement and touch

For one of the bases. Form. Form means to shape. We'd always have a hand motion like that so that we could remember what it, what the base means, or what the AIX means, and that really helped it stick in my mind so that if I thought, oh, form, what does that mean? Oh, form means to shape. I could just think of the hand motion. Then I'd remember what it means.

In kindergarten through second grade, students build early reading skills by learning how letters and their sounds work together to form words. By the third through fifth grade, they study morphology. The study of word parts such as prefixes, suffixes, and basses.

It makes you a much better reader because then like instead of having to blend things together, what you can do is you can just find the morph femes, you know, and you get the word a little bit faster.

Lori Ross back. The district's executive director of curriculum, said the improvement wasn't a quick fix. She said, when teachers have the right tools and support students thrive, additional details on the Orton-Gillingham method can be found on its website. For more information about this and other stories, visit Durango local.news. Thank you for watching this edition of The Local News Network. I'm Sadie Smith.