I am an educator with seventeen years of elementary experience. I am currently working with two students in the Barton System. One is a first grader who was retained last year. She had a very difficult time hearing and breaking up sounds. She is now able to break words down into their individual sounds. Her mother reports that she is sounding out words for the very first time and is more successful with reading. This program has also eliminated her b-d confusion.

My other student is a fourth grader. She came into the program not knowing her vowel sounds and reading very slowly. She has now mastered her short vowel sounds. Her teacher reports that her spelling has improved dramatically. I have also seen her fluency rate greatly increase. When we began she was using the lowest reader available. Within a matter of weeks she needed to move up to more difficult material.

When I started tutoring a 6th grade student in April, she was reading at a 3.5 grade level according to the SDRT score on her IEP testing.

After tutoring her for only 7 months, the school retested her using the SDRT. She is now reading at a 7.7 grade level.

Wow! That is a 4.2 grade level increase in only 7 months in a student with both dyslexia and ADD.

I am using your system with 12 students, and each child or teenager is having great success! Their parents, teachers, and the students love how the program helps them read, write and spell better. I have recently started working with two adults, as well.

Thank you for creating such an easy-to-use but extremely effective program. You are saving all these kids (and their parents) from years of unnecessary heartache and struggle.

It only takes one person to change a child’s entire future, and you have done that (indirectly) many times over. Thank you for allowing others (like me) to use this program to help people.

Here at Alma Heights Christian Academy, we have trained 4 teachers, 7 teacher aides, and 6 parent volunteers to use the Barton System. As a result, 34 students are being tutored with the Barton System.

Our teachers have embraced it, and they are coming up with innovative ways to ensure all students who need it, get it.

In November, we plan to train 3 more teachers to enable them to supervise an upper-class / Kindergarten Barton reading buddy program.

Thank you for making the future brighter for these students.

I’d love to share the success of my two students. I began tutoring each of them twice a week when the were in first grade. They are now in third grade and are receiving all A’s and B’s.

One is reading at grade level, while the other is actually reading a year above grade level.

They are so excited and proud that no one can tell they have dyslexia.

Their parents are tremendous supporters of this program because they see the fabulous growth in their children.

I love being a private tutor.

When I looked at the cost of purchasing the Barton System, I thought it was a little expensive — until I compared it to the cost of spending two summers driving to the Slingerland training and paying their training fees, and then paying their materials fee.

Your program is very affordable when you consider that.

Your program is wonderful. I had read that your system and the Wilson system are the two programs to use for dyslexics. Having used both, yours is so much easier to follow! All in one book. Thanks again!

I consider myself lucky to have discovered my passion. The Barton System has allowed me to serve my clients well, and their progress has been incredibly gratifying.

As a professional tutor already trained in the Lindamood-Bell LiPS program, I have to tell you that I absolutely LOVE the Barton System and have put it to immediate use.

Your color coding system is wonderful. And I love the physical aspect of your syllable division breaking process. The color coding of prefixes and suffixes makes it easy to see the baseword and derivatives, which is recommended by current research.

I liked the looks of your system, and I’m even more impressed now that I’ve worked with it for awhile. I’m trying to get the county literacy program to acquire this great system.

Got my first student through Barton Level 10 and he tested at 13+ grade level.

I am a kindergarten teacher. This is my second year tutoring a third-grade student with the Barton System. I enjoy seeing the amazing progress she is making. An unexpected bonus, for me, is how my knowledge of the Barton System has enhanced how I teach in my regular classroom.

Next week, I’ll be finishing Level 8 with an 18-year-old student who has been tutored every day. She is the most motivated student I have ever had. She wanted to make as much progress as possible before she moved out of the area.

When we started six months ago, she did not know most of the vowel sounds, nor the digraph or unit sounds.

She can how read and spell five- and six-syllable words, flawlessly, by sounding out. It has been a wonderful six months for both of us.

I love this work !!!!

The Barton System is extremely well organized, success oriented, and user friendly. For five months now, I’ve been using it to tutor a 10 year old child with dyslexia twice a week for an hour each session. Her reading skill had stagnated for years at the first grade level. This system has helped her tremendously. We’re making great progress, and her mother is delighted.

I have had a very rewarding experience being a Barton tutor these past few months. I am a retired primary school teacher, and I wanted to help out a friend who homeschooled three of her boys. I had no idea I would learn so much about teaching students with dyslexia and ADHD. You have opened my eyes and improved my teaching skills. Thank you.

I cannot tell you how thankful I am for the Barton Reading and Spelling System. I am seeing wonderful success with my students. Their parents are pleased, and the students like coming to me for tutoring because your system makes sense to them.

I would like to share with you that your program has opened the eyes and touched the lives of those around them. Twice, I have had moms cry as they watched “their babies” read with success.

My students start to use your strategies immediately in their classroom, thus proving that it works.

Thanks for developing the Barton System.

I have a 2nd grade daughter who just started being tutored by a certified Barton instructor this summer & all I can say is it is doing wonders for her!!!!! She has more confidence & is starting to want to read more. Thank you Susan Barton!!!!:)

One of the first students I tutored using the Barton System was an upper-elementary student in Special Education, and a virtual non-reader when we began.

After one year, he was removed from Special Education because there was no longer a discrepancy.

Now he is an honors student in middle school.

Susan, thank you again and again for helping so many.

You and the Barton System have miraculously helped countless numbers of children.

I had one parent tell me that what I done using The Barton Reading and Spelling System was like performing “magic”!

Susan is a terrific model, patient, kind and lively, with a wealth of “tricks.” Her user-friendly manuals reduce lesson planning time by at least 50%!

The Barton Reading and Spelling System is an important contribution to reaching the goal of universal literacy. Most adults with the desire and determination to teach another person to read and spell can now do so, even if the student has not been successful using traditional methods.

Susan Barton has distilled the best multisensory practices based on the pioneering work of Samuel Orton and Anna Gillingham, organized the material and provided extensive video training to ensure success. She addresses fine points of tutoring which demonstrate the authenticity of her methods and experience.

Her fully scripted lessons along with detailed, well developed, practice materials which include manipulatives, motivate tutors to get started immediately. The well-paced, structured, multisensory lessons are designed to build a strong foundation based on continuous reinforcement and the introduction of new learning in manageable increments.

Since I began facilitating a group of tutors using the Barton System, I have noticed an improvement in my own academic therapy techniques. Susan is a terrific model, patient, kind and lively, with a wealth of “tricks.” Her user-friendly manuals reduce lesson planning time by at least 50%!

The 17-year-old senior boy that I tutor came in very excited today. Some kids had started to tease him that the couldn’t spell a long word, but he proved to them that he could. He shared that he had tapped the syllables on his leg that was under the desk.

His whole world is opening up now that he can read. He told me that he is thinking about being a builder now that he can read. Before, he was just going to try to run a yard work business.

He passed the Science portion of the High School Exit Exam, after failing it last year because, as he put it, he could read the words this time.

I have tutored Julia, a 4th grader, for 17 sessions. She just finished Level 3.
Her mom just emailed this note:

Great news! Julia just received her report card. Her teacher commented that she has noticed an improvement in Julia’s comprehension. She also managed to get straight-A’s. Thank you for all you are doing to help her. It’s making a huge difference.

Susan, I just want to thank you for making this possible. As a Barton tutor, I have the most rewarding occupation in the world. I never would have found it without you.

You must receive hundreds of notes about the miraculous way the Barton Reading & Spelling System has changed lives. Add mine to the pile.

Logan just finished Level 10 of the Barton System.

When we began tutoring about 3 years ago, his end-of-year state standards test for English-Language Arts was unscorable. This past spring, he scored near the top of the Advanced range, which is 400 – 600. His score was 558.

Thanks to your incredible tutoring system, his dedicated family, and Logan (for always giving it his best), he has made tremendous strides. I am so proud to be part of his success.

I compared other programs before choosing the Barton Reading & Spelling System, even attending a “Gold Standard O-G Programs” workshop at an IDA conference years ago. I knew that the Barton System was going to work with students when I walked out of that workshop, given by leading IDA presenters.

I have worked with students of varying degrees of dyslexia and The Barton System has never failed the students I have tutored.

Thank you Susan, from all of us.

I have had the privilege of tutoring a 7th grade student this year. This young lady has been a pure delight. She works hard, is patient with my learning curve, and is greatly appreciative.

Last week, after five months of tutoring, she just received her very first ever PERFECT SCORE on a spelling test. She was beaming with pride. She explained that she uses the finger spelling technique in class, despite the fact that classmates ask why she is counting.

Thank you, Susan, for a program that helps kids become successful.

The first 2 weeks of 3rd grade the lightbulb went off for me. My daughter was never going to magically “catch up” developmentally. After about 10,000 flash cards, she was still spelling “of ” as “uv” and becoming depressed.

Thanks to a great friend who immediately turned me on to Barton and an amazing Barton tutor, she is now a thriving and school-loving 6th grader.

Still reads slowly, but loves to read challenging books and has great comprehension.

There is hope, and I am so very grateful to Susan Barton.

I am just a beginning tutor using the Barton System during the summer. I am tutoring one of my students from last year (second grade). I felt sure she had dyslexia, but had no way of really diagnosing it. Her parents were willing to try something new — the old ways were not working. She was reading below grade level and her spelling was atrocious.

I was very unsure about the first level; she seemed beyond that. However, we went diligently through each lesson, taking our time to make sure we were doing everything correctly.

When we hit level two, I have seen the parts coming together. She is now carefully double-checking her spelling using the b-p test, knowing that at this point, she can’t trust her eyes to pick the right one. She now uses it consistently, and a major spelling error has been overcome. Her reading is consistently improving.

Thanks for the Barton system. It’s easy to use and really works.

Currently I am tutoring 3 boys, ages 8, 14 and 15. The Barton System is working well. Before, I tutored for 2 years using the Slingerland method. The Barton System is so much easier to use. The tiles and your phonemic awareness level are fantastic. I recommend the Barton System to many tutors and parents.

Happy New Year, Susan. You know what a fan I am of the Barton program. I wanted to briefly share this with you.

One of my students, who is severely dyslexic, received straight A’s on her 6th grade report card and was exited out of Special Ed. The resource specialist told her parents that rarely, if ever, happens. Her parents are thrilled, and I am extremely proud to have been part of helping her achieve her potential.

Another student of mine is in first grade this year. He is also severely dyslexic. His kindergarten teacher was not hopeful that he would ever learn to read. When he started Barton tutoring, his sentences were just a string of letters. He is now reading and writing wonderful sentences.

Thank you for letting me share a few of my success stories. I am extremely proud of all of my students. I feel like I have found my calling.

I can’t believe that I am almost 50 years old and I’ve never known any of this. I didn’t even know what a phoneme was until I looked it up in the dictionary.

When I started volunteering at the literacy program, I thought to myself, “This is something that I can do because I read really well.” Well, it didn’t take me long to figure out that doing and teaching are completely different.

Now I understand what the struggling kids are dealing with. I had my doubts at the beginning whether or not I could teach this way, but I’m getting more confident. I can’t tell you how impressed I am by your system.

Love, love, love the Barton System!!

When my daughter was diagnosed in January 2013, she was failing in school.

She has received tutoring with Barton for 1 1/2 yrs (including summer tutoring).

She is now an A/B Honor Roll student.

I volunteered as a Barton tutor for a year to students and saw great success and improvement in my student’s reading.

My tutoree went from a DRA of 3 of 16 in 4.5 months from using Barton.

The way the material is presented in the tutor manuals is wonderful. It is precise, easy to follow and thorough. It gives you confidence to know that every single step is covered in detail. Not only have my students learned a lot from this system, I have too.

One of my students could not read, write or spell at all in first grade. He was a discipline problem, and he was referred for special ed.

I have been working with him all year in second grade, providing him with one-on-one tutoring with the Barton System.

He now reads at an end-of-third-grade level, and he has learned to spell. He comes to Scrabble Club and Spelling Bee Club every week, loves to spell, is no longer a discipline problem, and is being considered for the Gifted program.

He walks around with the biggest smile on his face. That is why I love my job!!!

I am currently tutoring 18 students, ages 8 to 17, with much success and tears — tears of happiness at the positive change in these children’s lives.

One boy drew me a chart yesterday, showing me that he was at the bottom of his class last year in reading and is now at the top.

Another boy is in a behavior disorder school and was unable to read — period. Not only is he in Lesson 4 of Level 3, but his behavior has changed drastically as well.

A high school junior who struggled to make C’s and D’s his freshman year now has A’s and 2 B+’s and plans to go to college.

I could go on and on.

Amazing program! My son and his peers are experiencing great improvement in their reading skills as a result of this program. Teachers and parents alike have noticed rapid and marked improvement since beginning tutoring and the kids LOVE it!

As a volunteer tutor, I particularly appreciate the fully scripted lesson plans. The Barton System books give me the words I need to explain the reading and spelling rules, and they remind me to encourage and praise my students. Most important, the program works! I have seen dramatic improvements in the reading and spelling skills of all the students I tutor.

I have used other Orton-Gillingham-based programs before. They helped with reading, but the spelling part was always left behind. As a tutor, I was frustrated because the child’s spelling was still a problem.

But in the Barton System, spelling is taught right along with reading. The spelling rules are simple enough for the child to understand and use. So their spelling improves along with their reading.

This is the difference between the Barton System and other OG programs that I have used in the past. I am really happy with Barton. I can testify that this program really works.

I finally have the resources at my fingertips to help parents and students with Dyslexia and with reading delays. I am a reading tutor by trade, and have used many different strategies and programs. I can, from the bottom of my heart and soul, tell people that your program is the finest I have ever used.

The Lord put you on this earth to educate and spread your knowledge. I will do everything in my power to bring families and adult students to you.

The most impressive thing about your program — besides the easy, thorough, and systematic way it is laid out — is the training that comes on the DVD’s. You are a master teacher, and I have learned a great deal from watching and rewatching your DVD’s.

I really thought that being a teacher myself, who won the Edwin Parr Teacher Award for best teacher in the province, that I would not learn a whole lot that would surprise me.

Well, I learned a lot from watching you. The method in which you teach, plus your positive and encouraging manner, has made me an even better teacher. Thank you.