Bessie Stillman

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

Career

Stillman was a teacher at the Ethical Culture School in New York when she met Anna Gillingham.[1] She began collaborating to further develop the teaching procedures of Samuel Orton, devised to help readers with dyslexia.[2] Gillingham and Stillman completed a remedial program called "The Alphabetic Method," which taught phonemes, morphemes and spelling rules through multisensory techniques.[3] Gillingham published "The Alphabetic Method" in 1936. This later became known as the Orton-Gillingham method.[4]

During this time (1935-1937) Stillman worked and studied with Gillingham at the Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii.[5][6][7] There they trained and collaborated with Beth Slingerland,[8][4] who adapted the Orton-Gillingham method also called the Orton-Gillingham-Stillman Method,[9] for use in classrooms. The method involves teaching dyslexics with a multisensory approach.[10]

Stillman worked with Gillingham until her death in 1947.[11]

Publications

In 1922, an essay by Stillman titled "School Excursions" was published in volume 22 of The Elementary School Journal.[12] Stillman's first book, Training Children to Study; Practical Suggestions, was published in 1928.[13] The first edition of 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.[14] This is the manual through which the Orton-Gillingham method is still largely taught today,[15] with the 8th edition published in 1997.[16] 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.[17][1]

References

1. McClelland, Jane (1989). "Gillingham: Contemporary After 76 Years". Annals of Dyslexia. 39 (1): 34–49. doi:10.1007/BF02656899. ISSN 0736-9387. JSTOR 23769351. PMID 24233470. S2CID 27304782.
2. 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.
3. "ORTON-GILLINGHAM-BASED AND/OR MULTISENSORY STRUCTURED LANGUAGE APPROACHES" (PDF). International Dyslexia Association. 2000.
4. Colony, Bonita. "History Of Orton-Based Multisensory Structured Language Methods". Clinical Studies of Multisensory Structured Language Instruction: 16–19.
5. "Punahou to open remedial work department in fall". Honolulu Star-Bulletin. 1936-05-25. p. 5. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
6. "Remedial program will be continued". Honolulu Star-Bulletin. 1937-09-04. p. 28. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
7. "Psychological Dept". The Honolulu Advertiser. 1937-05-31. p. 13. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
8. King, Lucinda (1981-11-07). "Punahou's dyslexia experts". The Honolulu Advertiser. p. 11. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
9. "Trivia bits". Detroit Free Press. 2018-04-11. pp. C5. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
10. Klages, Carol (2016-07-03). "Engage all senses for best response to learning delays". Victoria Advocate. pp. D06. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
11. Childs, Sally B. (1974). "2. The Anna Gillingham I knew". Bulletin of the Orton Society. 24 (1): 50–54. doi:10.1007/BF02653529. ISSN 0474-7534. S2CID 144992846.
12. Stillman, Bessie W. (1922-02-01). School Excursions. JSTOR. The Elementary School Journal.
13. 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. Reviews for Training Children to Study
    • "Review of TRAINING CHILDREN TO STUDY. Practical Suggestions". The Journal of Education. 108 (17): 448. 1928. doi:10.1177/002205742810801716. ISSN 0022-0574. JSTOR 42877386. S2CID 220789711.
    • "Parent-teacher group selects study books". The News and Observer. 1934-03-11. p. 29. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
14. Gillingham, Anna; Stillman, Bessie Whitmore (1936). Remedial Training for Children with Specific Disability in Reading, Spelling and Penmanship ... (1st ed.). Sackett, & Wilhelms lithographing Corp., Long Island City. OCLC 4960137.
15. Schereschewsky, John (1965-03-09). "Good silent reader has oral trouble". Hartford Courant. p. 17. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
16. Gillingham, Anna; Stillman, Bessie W. (1997). The Gillingham manual : remedial training for students with specific disability in reading, spelling, and penmanship (8th ed., rev ed.). Cambridge, MA: Educators Pub. Service. ISBN 0-8388-0200-1. OCLC 42672423.
17. 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.