Curriculum support
IMSE Orton-Gillingham meets Storytime AI
How Storytime AI supports IMSE Impact and Comprehensive OG classrooms — decodable books mapped to the IMSE scope, multisensory practice extended digitally, and per-pattern mastery tracking.
- Publisher
- Institute for Multi-Sensory Education
- Grade range
- K-2
- Pedagogy
- Orton-Gillingham · multisensory · systematic phonics · structured literacy
How IMSE Orton-Gillingham works in Storytime
Decodable library mapped lesson-by-lesson
Each IMSE Orton-Gillingham lesson has a curated set of decodable books that use only the phonics patterns introduced through that lesson.
Auto-generated journeys
Tell Storytime which IMSE Orton-Gillingham lesson you're on; the platform generates a per-student journey that drills the same patterns.
Skill Tree at the pattern level
Mastery tracked per phonics pattern in the IMSE Orton-Gillingham sequence — not just a global score.
About the program
The Institute for Multi-Sensory Education (IMSE) trains teachers in Orton-Gillingham-based reading instruction and publishes the IMSE Impact and IMSE Comprehensive programs. Both are systematic, sequential, and explicit phonics curricula that work through letter sounds, blending, digraphs, blends, vowel teams, R-controlled vowels, syllable types, and multi-syllable decoding — the standard OG progression — with multisensory routines at every step.
IMSE is widely used both as a whole-class Tier-1 program in elementary classrooms and as a Tier-2/Tier-3 intervention for students with reading difficulty, including dyslexia.
What Storytime adds
IMSE’s classroom routines are deliberately multisensory and paper-based — drill cards, sand trays, finger tapping, sound boxes. Storytime adds the individualized digital practice layer that lets each student get the right next thing in their phonics journey without the teacher pulling separate resources for every kid.
Decodable books tagged to the IMSE scope
Storytime’s decodable library is tagged against the IMSE Impact and Comprehensive scopes. When a student is working on R-controlled vowels in IMSE, the library surfaces books that use only the patterns introduced through that lesson — same instructional zone the teacher would pick by hand.
Multisensory practice extended digitally
IMSE’s classroom multisensory practice (saying sounds while writing letters, tapping fingers for each sound, using sound boxes for segmenting) is replicated in Storytime’s K-2 games: sound-boxes, sound-slide, sound-surgeon, and syllable-tap all preserve the say-while-doing pattern. The K2 Nova character narrates each phoneme; students tap, drag, or write in response.
Per-pattern + per-syllable-type mastery
The Skill Tree tracks mastery at the granularity IMSE teaches: short vowels, digraphs, blends, vowel teams, R-controlled vowels, the six syllable types, and multi-syllable patterns. A teacher looking at the phonics pillar can tell which IMSE concept is strong, growing, or not yet mastered.
Encoding as systematically as decoding
IMSE treats spelling as the inverse of decoding — every phonics lesson includes encoding. Storytime mirrors this with sentence-dictation, spelling-bee, and word-builder games that use only the patterns from the current lesson. The Skill Tree tracks encoding mastery alongside decoding within the phonics pillar so teachers see whether a pattern is “read but not spelled” or both.
Heart words with the IMSE convention
High-frequency irregular words are taught as heart words — the regular parts decoded, the irregular part marked with a heart and memorized through consistent practice. Storytime’s heart-word visual matches the standard OG/IMSE convention.
Multi-syllable + syllable-type sequencing
IMSE’s later lessons focus on multi-syllable decoding through syllable-type analysis. Storytime’s upper-grade decodable library and word-chains, word-factory, syllable-snap games support this transition. Multi-syllable books surface in the journey once underlying syllable types are mastered.
What classrooms typically do
- IMSE during the structured-literacy block, paper-based with multisensory routines and dictation
- Storytime during literacy stations, at-home practice, and intervention pull-out, with decodable books and games tied to the day’s IMSE skill
- For students with dyslexia or other reading difficulties, Storytime’s individualization is especially helpful — these students often need many more practice cycles than whole-class IMSE provides
What teachers ask
“Does Storytime replace IMSE?” No. IMSE is the instructional methodology and teacher training. Storytime is the digital practice and assessment layer that complements IMSE classroom routines.
“Does it work for students with dyslexia?” Yes — and especially. Structured-literacy practice with strong audio support, individualization, and consistent procedure is what students with dyslexia need most. Storytime’s Hi-Lo decodables also let older striving readers get age-respectful practice text matched to their phonics scope, not their reading age.
“What about Orton-Gillingham more broadly?” The principles of OG — systematic, explicit, sequential, cumulative, multisensory — are the principles Storytime is built on. Schools using other OG-based programs (Wilson, Slingerland, Spalding, classical OG, Reading Horizons) can map their scope and sequence the same way IMSE classrooms do.
Set up your classroom with IMSE Orton-Gillingham pre-selected.
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