WHO WE ARE

About Us

We do two things at Orton Gillingham Reading Specialists:

We teach struggling readers how to read, spell, and do handwriting using the Orton Gillingham approach to literacy.

We teach educators how to become Orton Gillingham Reading Specialists.

education, elementary school, learning, gesture and people concept - group of school kids and showing thumbs up in classroom

HOW WE STARTED

Our History

Orton Gillingham Reading Specialists was established in 2003 by Karen Sonday, M. Ed. and Fellow of Orton Gillingham Academy. She began the business in a small office, teaching struggling readers with just two teachers. In 2018, we moved into a beautiful training center in Edina, MN where we grew our services and our staff. After the advent of COVID, we transitioned to a fully-online business model and are now able to serve students from all over the world with our staff of 12. We have helped thousands of students - pre-K through adult - learn to read.

KAREN SONDAY

Our Founder

Karen Sonday (M.A. Special Education, B.A. Child Psychology, F/OGA) is our owner and founder. She has been an Orton Gillingham practitioner since 1983 and is a speaker and teacher trainer nationally and internationally. Karen supervises each of our Reading Specialists, creating a consistent and extremely effective program for students. She is also co-author of the Sonday System Essentials Orton Gillingham based curriculum with her mother, Arlene Sonday, an eminent Orton Gillingham teacher and author. The Sonday System curriculum is being used in school districts all over the world.