How the Barton System Works

The outcomes of this pilot study demonstrate that students who participated in short-term instruction with the Barton Reading & Spelling System had associated gains and remediation of phonological awareness deficits and improvements in word level reading on both a non-word decoding assessment and a context free, grade level word list assessment. Students also experienced modest gains in rapid naming.

Students who participated in the program also experienced improvements in attitudes about reading, learning ability, and demonstrated new and positive classroom behaviors. HYS was awarded a grant for expanding the Barton program and is currently conducting a larger study that is examining further measures of reading progress and behavioral health.

In 2013, a Duval County public school did a pilot program with 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students who had a record of significant reading deficiency. They provided an hour of small group intervention (3 students) every day using the Barton Reading & Spelling System.

On the Word Attack subtest of the Woodcock Reading Mastery 3 test, students showed an average grade-level gain of over 1 year – after just 3 months of small-group intervention.

On the easyCBM, a nationally normed test of reading fluency and comprehension which is aligned with the Common Core State Standards, on a grade-level passage, Barton students increased their score by 61.9 percentile points in just 3 months.

Penn Christian Academy, a private Christian School in Butler, Pennsylvania, started a Reading Assistance program using the Barton Reading & Spelling System for students identified as dyslexic.

Data from the years 2010 to 2013 included a range of students from first graders to sixth graders. They received three 40-minute sessions each week, for a total of 2 hours of one-on-one tutoring a week, which is the absolute minimum amount of time required to use the Barton System with fidelity. No intervention occurred during the 3 month summer breaks.

These students showed outstanding growth – far more growth than students without dyslexia typically make – no matter which reading test was used.

The mission of the Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) is:

• To conduct basic research on reading, reading growth, reading assessment, and reading instruction that will contribute to the scientific knowledge of reading and benefit students in Florida and throughout the nation
• To disseminate information about research-based practices related to literacy instruction and assessment for children in pre-school through 12th grade.
• To conduct applied research that will have an immediate impact on policy and practices related to literacy instruction in Florida.
• To provide technical assistance to Florida’s schools and to the State Department of Education for the improvement of literacy outcomes in students from pre-K through 12th grade.

Florida Center for Reading Research published a glowing report on the Barton Reading & Spelling System on their website.

The Benton School District in Arkansas implemented an early intervention, Response To Intervention (RTI) program in all four of their elementary schools. They screened their kindergarten and first grade students using Dibels to identify students at risk of reading failure — and used Dibels to monitor the success of each type of intervention.

The Barton Reading & Spelling System was used as Tier 3 Intervention for students in the highest risk category. Groups of no more than 3 students received Barton tutoring at least 3 times a week for 30 minutes per session.

More than 2 years gain in 40 weeks!

Independent research conducted in Florida at two different Speech-Language clinics showed more than 2 years of gain in decoding and reading comprehension, and more than 1.5 years of gain in fluency, after 40 weeks of one-on-one Barton tutoring.

All of the participants had documented reading deficits due to dyslexia. They ranged from first graders to sixth graders. 52% of the children came from households below the poverty level.37% attended public school, 31.5% attended private school, and 31.5% were homeschooled.

Students were pre and post tested using the Phonetic Reading Test (PRT).

The Barton System teaches spelling as strongly as it teaches reading, and the improvement in spelling shows up quickly on Florida’s new FAIR spelling assessment, as this teacher reported.

Although this study only included 6 special education students who were classified as Learning Disabled, it tracked those students over two years. The first year they did not receive Barton tutoring. The second year they received two 45-minute one-on-one tutoring sessions per week.

Their growth, per their results on the state standards tests, are as follows:

2 years gain in 6 months!

As part of a multi-year grant, four school districts in Alaska are testing students for dyslexia, then providing those students with one-on-one tutoring using the Barton Reading & Spelling System.

In early October, 45 of those students from grades 2 through 11 were given Form A of the GORT to establish “before” scores. Students in the elementary grades were then given 2 to 3 hours of one-on-one Barton tutoring per week. Middle and high school students received 5 hours per week. Those same 45 students were given form B of the GORT 6 months later, in April, to measure their progress.Their average growth rate was 2 years — in just 6 months of Barton tutoring. To view their before-and-after data, click here. Camille Booth, the director of the STRIVE Dyslexia Program shared that her program is now serving 140 students in four public school districts in or near Craig, Alaska.

Discovery Elementary School in Palm Beach, Florida, screened all first graders in January using DIBELS. They took the 20 lowest-scoring at-highest-risk students and provided 3 months of small-group instruction using the Barton Reading & Spelling System. In April, after just 3 months of intervention, 17 of the 20 students scores were above the DIBELS benchmark in Nonsense Word Fluency, which tests the ability to read by sounding out.

Now that I have data to show such incredible improvement, my principal has agreed to allow K-2 intervention using the Barton Reading & Spelling System to take place all year long this coming school year.

Their before-after scores were:

This study was written up as an independent scientific journal article, which has been submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. It shows statistically significant gains in phonemic awareness, rapid naming, and phonological memory after only 5 months of twice-a-week tutoring using the Barton System.

The Pleasanton Unified School District has documented significant gains in student performance through the use of volunteer tutors trained in the Barton System.

Watch a 3-minute You-Tube video of Christina Clark, their Barton Facilitator, explaining their program and sharing their before-and-after research data.

Watch a different 3-minute You-Tube video by a student who did not get the right type of help until high school — and the difference it made.

By the way, that student just graduated and joined the Marines. He scored so high on their aptitude test that they put him straight into Aeronautical Engineering.

View this unsolicited independent before-after data from five unusual school sites, ranging from Byron’s Boys Ranch (a juvenile correction facility) to a private school for students with learning disabilities