Take Flight: A Comprehensive Intervention for Students with Dyslexia is an Orton-Gillingham based curriculum written by the staff of the Luke Waites Center for Dyslexia and Learning Disorders at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children (TSRHC) in Dallas, Texas. It was built on the successes of three previous dyslexia interventions developed by the staff of TSRHC: Alphabetic Phonics, Dyslexia Training Program, and TSRHC Literacy Program. Take Flight is a curriculum that is evidence-based and backed by research.

Take Flight is designed specifically for individuals who have a language-based learning difference (dyslexia), the 10 – 15% of the population who may be unable to remember two-dimensional symbols, letters, or words easily. These individuals require intervention that utilizes special methods and materials.

Take Flight is a comprehensive, ungraded, structured, and sequential curriculum that utilizes multisensory techniques for basic instruction in reading, writing, and spelling. Task analysis was used to organize and sequence the following:

• • • Phonic regularities for reading

    • Rules for syllable division

    • Spelling

    • Other basic linguistic concepts

Take Flight is based on the pioneering research of Dr. Samuel T. Orton, neuropsychiatrist, and the educational and psychological insights of Anna Gillingham. The Orton-Gillingham techniques for teaching children lacking a talent for language became the basis of a pilot from 1965 – 1975 at the Language Laboratory at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas, Texas. An interdisciplinary team worked to incorporate multisensory techniques, current findings in learning theories, and discovery teaching into the Take Flight curriculum.