A MULTISENSORY APPROACH TO READING AND SPELLING
According to McIntyre and Pickering (1995), the multisensory approach is a model of language instruction which holds that learning or acquiring knowledge and skills in given subject areas is best facilitated by involving more than one of learners senses. For example, simultaneously tracing a letter made out of sandpaper and saying the letter's name is an example of the multisensory approach. The approach is also sequential in that instruction is organized in such a manner that students begin learning the easiest and most basic material and then progress to the more difficult material. In addition, McIntyre and Pickering point out that multisensory language instruction requires the direct teaching of all concepts with continuous student-teacher interaction. This interaction is one in which the teacher must be adept at both prescriptive and individualized teaching with a goal of having students to master the content.
McIntyre and Pickering (1995) further note that:
Multisensory, structured language programs include both synthetic and analytic instruction. Synthetic instruction presents the parts of the language and then teaches how the parts work together to form a whole. Analytic instruction presents the whole and teaches how this can be broken down into its component parts (p.1).
Finally, McIntyre and Pickering (1995) report that the multisensory approach can be used in almost every area of language learning. In this regard, it is frequently used to instruct in both reading and spelling for students who have learning disabilities. It can be noted that "learning disabilities" is a term commonly used to refer to students who have some sort of disorder of basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, which may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculatio...