What Are Multi-Sensory Methods for Teaching Reading
An activity can be considered a multi-sensory method for teaching reading when more than one sensory mode is used to complete a task in reading. The sensory modes are see, touch, hear, taste, and smell. Each sensory mode brings information into a unique area of the brain. The more sensory modes used in your reading instruction, the easier it is to remember the information.
Multi-sensory reading instruction is crucial for the learners that are struggling when learning to read. These methods will help a struggling learner to file and retrieve information in the brain. This means that he will learn and remember the information being taught.
For example, tracing a letter on sandpaper while saying the sound aloud is a multisensory activity. This double action simultaneously activates more than one pathway in the neural systems of the brain. This helps the individual to remember the targeted task. Touch and sound are activated in this activity and if you use a color that would make three sensory pathways activated.
Building Strong Neural Pathways
Your goal in multi-sensory reading instruction is to build strong neural pathways in the brain for reading skills. This is done with explicit instruction and repeated practice using multi-sensory reading instruction methods.
Picture the brain like an open field. You travel through that field every day for a shortcut. Eventually, there is a pathway worn into the grass from taking that shortcut.
We want to develop these pathways in the brain which are necessary for reading effectively. These pathways are built with repeated practice. Good readers already have these pathways but struggling readers can develop these pathways using multi-sensory methods and repeated practice.
Multi-Sensory Methods
Read through the multisensory methods page. Choose a couple of activities which fit your reader’s needs.
Struggling readers usually need to use multisensory methods and activities for practicing phonemic awareness skills, learning letter names and sounds (including two and three letter combinations), and learning new sight words. Some of these activities are better suited to younger learners rather than older learners. You will have to judge which activities are best for your unique situation and your unique learner.
This is definitely an eye-opening article! I had no idea that there was even something called multisensory. All of this has ALWAYS interested me and I’ve always wanted to get into practicing the tasks. I just checked out your activities that you mentioned and it looks like I can get started right away. Wow, so easy and fast! I’ll be giving them a go right now, so thanks a lot for this great article 🙂
here are the top 10 games to help kids practice reading skillsHi Brandon,
I am so glad that you liked the article! Multi-sensory techniques helped me to teach the the kids who struggled the most in the classroom. I also used these techniques to teach my own children to read. Two of my five daughters have dyslexia. The Reading Blocks Program uses these techniques in every block. That’s why people have such great results with the program! Another great way to practice reading skills is in a game format. Here are the top 10 games to help kids practice reading skills but have fun at the same time. They will never know they are learning! Good Luck!
I never knew that anything existed like multi-sensory practices or methods. I will try to use these simple steps immediately and see what happens.
Thanks so much for the tips! Godlove
Hi Godlove,
I am so delighted that you are going to try using more multi-sensory methods. They are great to use with everyone, but even more important to use with people who struggle to learn. When you use more than one pathway into the brain, you have more ways to help you retain and retrieve the information that you want to learn.If you are trying to teach someone how to read, check out the Reading Blocks Program. Every block contains several multi-sensory methods to help the person learning to read remember the information. Remembering the information is the key to being successful. Good Luck!
This is such a phenomenal topic. I was totally unaware of the term and meaning of “multisensory activities”. I certainly learned something unique from this post!
Hi Demi,
I hear that a lot! These are the best methods to use when teaching kids how to read, especially kids that are having trouble. You can find my Blog here if you want to learn more about teaching reading. And here are the best tools to use with multi-sensory learning methods. Thanks for writing!
Veronica