Bessie Stillman

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]

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]