Teaching · For Tutors

Multisensory Lesson Planner

Plan a lesson where seeing, saying, tracing and moving land on the same item at the same moment, and watch the minutes add up as you go.

Start a planWhat you get
$12one-time · every device you sign in on
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Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the Tutoring business kit, $69 for 97 items.

Plans

Each plan keeps its timeline, its channels and its checks. Load the worked example to see a full 45-minute phonics lesson.

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What you get

Teaching · For Tutors$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with
A lesson plan with the skill, the goal, the channels used together and the materials; a timeline of segments that adds up against the lesson length and shows the share of time the student is working; seven design checks marked ready, not yet or not needed; and a run sheet with clock times to print.
Who it is for
Tutors and teachers who plan one-to-one or small-group lessons in phonics, spelling, letter formation, math facts or vocabulary.
Format
Browser tool with a saved record per lesson plan. Prints a run sheet with clock times, the full lesson plan, every lesson plan in a table or a blank form; downloads a spreadsheet (.csv); exports and imports a file.
Access
$12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the Tutoring business kit ($69) and the Teaching Suite pass ($199), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The For Tutors space in Caveat Teaching.
Support
Questions about access, an order or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.

How to use it

  1. Set the length and the skill.
  2. Choose the channels and how they meet.
  3. Lay out the segments, minute by minute.
  4. Mark the design checks.
  5. Print the run sheet.

Start a plan

Teaching one item through several senses

One item, every channel at the same moment1See itThe letter card or writtenword, in clear print, with the2Hear and say itThe tutor says the sound; thestudent repeats it while3Trace it while saying itFinger in sand or on atextured card, saying the4Write it from dictationHear the sound, say it, thenwrite it without the model5Read it in a wordTap the sounds, blend, thenread the word in a short6Fade the supportDrop the sand tray onceaccuracy holds across twoOne item, every channel at the same moment1See itThe letter card or written word, inclear print, with the mouth shape in amirror2Hear and say itThe tutor says the sound; the studentrepeats it while looking at the card3Trace it while saying itFinger in sand or on a textured card,saying the sound on every stroke4Write it from dictationHear the sound, say it, then write itwithout the model5Read it in a wordTap the sounds, blend, then read theword in a short sentence6Fade the supportDrop the sand tray once accuracy holdsacross two sessions
The point of the channels is that they happen together on the same item. Seeing a card, then later tracing a different letter, is variety, not multisensory teaching.

What the evidence says

Explicit, systematic phonics teaching has strong evidence behind it. Multisensory work is one feature of structured literacy programs, and it is the feature with the thinnest research of its own: analyses that pooled studies of these programs found few rigorous ones and no statistically significant effect on reading outcomes. Treat the channels as a way to keep the student saying and producing the sound, not as a cure in themselves.

Where the minutes go

A 45-minute lesson with six or more segments keeps attention. The tool flags any block over 10 minutes and any plan where the student works for under 60 percent of the time, which usually means the modelling ran long.

Sources

  1. National Reading Panel (2000). Teaching Children to Read: An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading and Its Implications for Reading Instruction. NICHD.
  2. International Dyslexia Association (2018). Knowledge and Practice Standards for Teachers of Reading (dyslexiaida.org).
  3. Stevens, E. A., Austin, C., Moore, C., Scammacca, N., Boucher, A. N., and Vaughn, S. (2021). Current state of the evidence: examining the effects of Orton-Gillingham reading interventions for students with or at risk for word-level reading disabilities. Exceptional Children, 87(4), 397-417.
  4. Rosenshine, B. (2012). Principles of instruction: research-based strategies that all teachers should know. American Educator, 36(1), 12-19.

The worked examples are made up. The 60 percent and 10-minute flags are planning rules of thumb, not research thresholds. Nothing you type is sent to Caveat. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.