Riggs method of phonics instruction

The Riggs method of teaching phonics is a short substitute for the full name: The Writing & Spelling Road to Reading and Thinking, developed by Myrna McCullough.

The method of instruction begins by "teaching manuscript letter formation through dictated instructions (no copying or tracing), together with a sufficient set of sound/letter relationships (the alphabetic principle).... These phoneme/grapheme relationships are taught together as 'explicit' phonics, 'in isolation' (without key words, pictures or letter names)." [Home page of [http://www.riggsinst.org The Riggs Institute] ] The concept was recommendedcn|date=June 2008 in the 1985 synthesis of reading research done by a group of American reading professors, "Becoming a Nation of Readers."

Both the Riggs method and Riggs Institute are named after Oma Riggs, who together with Romalda Spalding and Anna Gillingham applied the theories and methodology pioneered by Dr. Samuel Orton to brain-damaged adults and to schoolchildren (see also Orton-Gillingham approach to reading). Spalding wrote "The Writing Road to Reading."

References