Does the Academy recommend a certain number of tutoring hours per week for the OG Approach to be effective?

The most common instructional pattern to be employed by Orton-Gillingham teachers is a 1:1 model. This includes at least two independent sessions per week, each with a duration of 40 to 60 minutes each on non-consecutive days. Variations in this pattern may range from a single session per week (of one or more hours) to students who attend schools expressly designed for students with dyslexia.  In the latter cases, Orton-Gillingham instruction is daily. The important thing is that every effort should be made to structure Orton-Gillingham instruction to fit the learning needs of the particular student.

The determination of the instructional model used with the Orton-Gillingham Approach should take into account initial testing and evaluation by a person qualified and experienced in the evaluation of students who have dyslexia. Such an evaluation should provide information about the reading and related language processing difficulties of the child, where these problems lie in terms of stages of reading development, the general severity of these problems, and the presence of other confounding difficulties that may contribute to the child’s literacy learning difficulties. In addition to this assessment, a case history is called for. Findings of the case history may also be of relevance to the question of the instructional model, e.g., the availability of appropriate instruction, the ease of accessibility to that instruction, scheduling demands relating to the student and to the parents, etc.