Bessie Stillman

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Born| 1871
Died| 1947
Occupation|

* Educator
* contributor

Bessie Whitmore Stillman (1871-1947) was an educator and contributor to the Orton-Gillingham teaching method for students with disabilities in reading.[1]

## Contents

* 1 Career and Collaboration
* 2 Publications
* 3 References
* 4 External links

## Career and Collaboration[edit]

Stillman was a remedial teacher when she began collaborating with her friend and colleague Anna Gillingham to further develop the teaching procedures of Dr. Samuel Orton, devised to help readers with dyslexia. Gillingham and Stillman completed a remedial program called "The Alphabetic Method," which taught phonemes, morphemes and spelling rules through multisensory techniques.[2] Gillingham published "The Alphabetic Method" in 1936. This later became known as the Orton-Gillingham method.[3]

During this time (1935-1937) Stillman worked and studied with Gillingham at the Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii. There they trained and collaborated with Beth Slingerland, who adapted the Orton-Gillingham method to the classroom on her return to the continental United States.[3] The Slingerland Institute in Bellevue, Washington was established in 1977 to share this technique with others.[4] Thousands of teachers have since been trained in the Slingerland Classroom Adaptation of the Orton-Gillingham approach.[3]

## Publications[edit]

In 1922, an essay by Stillman titled "School Excursions" was published in volume 22 of The Elementary School Journal.[5] Stillman wrote her own book, Training Children to Study; Practical Suggestions, which was published in 1928.[6]

The Gillingham Manual: Remedial Training for Children with Specific Disability in Reading, Spelling, and Penmanship, (originally "The Alphabetic Method") was written by Gillingham and Stillman, and published in 1936. This is the manual through which the Orton-Gillingham method is still largely taught today. In the preface of later editions, Gillingham noted that certain sections were largely the late Stillman's work, to the point that she could not bring herself to edit them.[7]

## References[edit]

1. ↑ Stillman, Bessie W. (Bessie Whitmore) (1928). Training children to study;practical suggestions,. The Library of Congress. Boston, New York [etc.] D. C. Heath and company.
2. ↑ "ORTON-GILLINGHAM-BASED AND/OR MULTISENSORY STRUCTURED LANGUAGE APPROACHES" (PDF). International Dyslexia Association. 2000.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Colony, Bonita. "History Of Orton-Based Multisensory Structured Language Methods". Clinical Studies of Multisensory Structured Language Instruction: 16–19.
4. ↑ "History - Slingerland Literacy Institute". www.slingerland.org. Retrieved 2022-03-07.
5. ↑ Stillman, Bessie W. (1922-02-01). School Excursions. JSTOR. The Elementary School Journal.
6. ↑ Stillman, Bessie W. (Bessie Whitmore) (1928). Training children to study;practical suggestions,. The Library of Congress. Boston, New York [etc.] D. C. Heath and company.
7. ↑ Gillingham, Anna; W. Stillman, Bessie (1997). The Gillingham Manual: Remedial Training for Children with Specific Disability in Reading, Spelling, and Penmanship. Educators Publishing Service. ISBN 0-8388-0200-1.

## External links[edit]

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