Clarice Jackson

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.