Barton Reading and Spelling: Expensive, Boring, and Effective

The following is a guest post by Stacie Farias, a Mexican-American mom of 6 who does not blog because she is too busy reading other blogs to write one of her own.

Have you been struggling to find the right reading and spelling program for your children? Do you have a child with a learning difference who needs the right program to guide them on their path to reading fluency? Today's reading program might be for you! Barton Reading and Spelling is a powerful program that works with all children.

This post contains affiliate links.

The Basics

Barton Reading & Spelling is an Orton-Gillingham based reading and spelling program created by Susan Barton. According to the Barton website, the Barton system “is a great tutoring system for children, teenagers, and adults who struggle with reading, spelling, and writing due to dyslexia or a learning disability.”

Barton Reading and Spelling has 10 levels that range in price from $300 - $350 per level. All students must pass the free Barton Student Screener in order to be able to use the program and all tutors, or parents who “tutor” their own children, must pass the free Barton Tutor Screener. There are several other requirements to be a Barton student (or at least be able to benefit from the Barton program) that are listed here.

The Real Review

Now that I have explained all the basic information, let me give y’all the real deal from a homeschool mom who has tutored her kids through 7 of the 10 Barton levels. 

Barton Reading and Spelling is VERY expensive, as far as homeschool curriculum is concerned. We have paid $350 for just one level?!?!? And all you get is a large spiral-bound manual, some colored tiles, and a set of DVDs!!! 

Yup. A lucky set of circumstances helped us to cover some of these costs, but yes. We paid $300 to $350 per level for a box with a giant manual, some colored tiles (although the tile app is better) and a set of DVDs. The plus side of Barton is that it has a very high resale value. Most families buy one level at a time and list that level “for sale” on eBay or various Facebook groups and easily get back $250-$300 back. That money goes into buying the next level their kiddo needs. Another plus is that many Barton parents later invest in becoming certified Barton tutors and begin to tutor other children. Overall, tutoring your own children is still astonishingly cheaper than paying a tutor to do it for you. 

Barton Reading and Spelling is VERY boring. LOL! This does not sound like an endorsement but it most definitely is, after an explanation. Barton was originally written for adults and so there are no cutesy pictures or anything of ANY visual interest in the student pages. The practice stories are drab. The procedures of Barton are so repetitive that you may require a caffeine boost to get you through them. But the repetition is key! The formulaic, systematic, and yes boring, procedures are exactly what a dyslexic student needs to recall and retain the many skills that are needed to read and spell. This is the secret of an Orton-Gillingham based program and why it works. And by the way, Barton is scripted. Moms, you CAN teach your child using this system by watching the DVDs, then doing the lessons from the script. That’s all you need. 

Barton Reading and Spelling is VERY effective. I have seen it in my own children. Their spelling is not perfect 100% of the time but they now have tools to help them. My children can break apart syllables. My children know what schwa is. My children are helping their younger siblings learn how to read using Barton techniques. Wha?!?!? Yes! I caught my dyslexic 12-year-old explaining to my 7-year-old why “y” makes different sounds at the end of a word. It’s called the Cry Baby Rule, thank you Barton!! 

With regards to my children’s reading skills, Barton has been effective in 2 ways. First, my children have stopped guessing at words (at least in front of me) and my children can read words that they have never encountered before by breaking apart syllables. Many people think this is the same as “sound it out,” but it is not the quite the same. There is a system for breaking apart syllables to determine what sounds the letters make and my kids understand this because of Barton. If you are more convinced by numbers, take a look at these studies about Barton’s effectiveness. 

Disclaimer! I could not possibly say everything there is to say about the Barton experience. Some days it just clicks and some days we have to close the manual and take a break. And what can I say about Susan Barton herself? She is a queen, A QUEEN!! If you watch this video of Susan Barton explaining signs and symptoms of dyslexia, you can see how much she cares and how much she knows. When you hear the story about her nephew, grab a tissue. 

Please! If you suspect dyslexia in your child or children, I highly recommend checking up Susan Barton’s two websites:

• Bright Solutions for Dyslexia
• and the Barton Reading and Spelling specific website. 

Do NOT be put off by the early 2000s look of the websites. LOL! The information is up-to-date.

Supplies to Help You Teach

These are some of the extra supplies I find helpful in teaching my kids to read with this program. 

• tabletop whiteboard and markers
• 3-ring binder
• page protectors
• plastic (tile) organizer
• Crayola Take Note ERASABLE Highlighter Set << These are awesome!

I also really like the I See, I Spell, I Learn Super Combo Picture Sight Words & Picture Homophones Flashcards...

And these guided reading strips are also extremely helpful.

Keep learning!

Click on these links to additional information about dyslexia resources or other reading program reviews.

• Resources for Dyslexia Awareness Month
  
  
• PRIDE Reading Program Review
  
  
• Teaching Children with Learning Differences to Read with Reading Horizons
  
  
• Reading Eggs review

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Stacie Servantes Farias is an Army wife and mom of 6 with a “very healthy” obsession for Snoopy, Disney movies, Audrey Hepburn, Dr. Pepper, Whataburger, books, and homeschooling. Originally from Mission, Texas, Stacie and her high-school sweetheart hubby live with their kids and dog in a different home every few years, because that is the military life. She has big plans to write a book exploring her theory that La Llorona drowned her children because they would take their socks off all over the house and then would complain that they never had clean socks! Stacie also thinks she is really funny, but she is mostly lame. 

3 Things to Do to Start Homeschooling

© Can Stock Photo / jolopes

It's time to talk about beginning homeschool. So many people are looking ahead to the fall and realizing that given the current state of things with the pandemic, there's a good chance that schools may not reopen and many don't feel safe sending their child to school.

If this sounds like you, then it is time to start preparing to homeschool. Here are the steps that I recommend you take to get started.

This post may contain affiliate links.

1) Research

Once you have decided to take the leap and homeschool your kid(s), then the first thing you need to do is a little research so that you can make some decisions. 

The most important thing to do first, is find out what the laws are in your state regarding homeschooling.

Buy my book

My newly revised and updated book, The Latino Family's Guide to Homeschooling, is FULL of information on homeschooling. You can find everything quickly at your fingertips. 

Or, if you have the time to do a LOT of searching on MommyMaestra.com, you can find many of the chapters from my book in blog posts. Here's a list of the posts I wrote right after I started MommyMaestra. These all reflect the things I thought about or learned when we were starting. And there are also some posts from guests who contributed their perspective and tips for navigating homeschool as Latino parents.

So if you are thinking about homeschooling your child, these are all good posts to read to prepare yourself. 

• Is Homeschooling the Right Choice for My Familia?
• Thinking About Homeschooling?
• A Brief Description of Homeschooling Methods
• What is Bilingual Homeschooling?
• 5 Tips for Non-Native Speakers to Homeschool Bilingually
• Dealing with the Emotional Decision to Homeschool
• Will My Homeschooled Child’s Social Skills Suffer?
• How to Start Homeschooling
• How to Organize and Keep Track of Your Child’s Lessons
• Six Qualities That Help You to Be a Successful Homeschooler
• Homeschool Isn't for Every Day

2) Decide on a Homeschool Method

Or a combination of methods. Don't worry. It isn't set in stone. You may discover that what you thought you would enjoy most isn't actually what works best for you and/or your child. But we all have to start somewhere, no? So carefully review my post with a brief description of homeschooling methods. Think about what your child enjoys and see if you can find one that appeals to you. You might even ask your kids what they think and include them in the decision.

3) Look for a Curriculum

Honestly, THE BEST ADVICE I got when I first started was to get a complete curriculum. I can't remember if I bought one gently used on eBay or if a homeschooling friend lent me theirs after they were done. But either way, this absolutely 100% helped ME understand my child better and made teaching so much easier. I learned what was a realistic amount of time was for my child to spend on any one subject - it was WAY shorter than what I was trying to make her do! I also learned how to teach and what to teach. 

If you pick a particular homeschool method, you can easily Google it plus the word curriculum. The one thing I want to recommend is that you ALWAYS download the sample pages that the program offers so that you can see what it is like before you buy it. Even if you buy it on eBay, go first to the publisher's website and download the samples.

For a complete curriculum, here are some of the more popular ones with curricula for PreK - 12th grade:

• Calvert Homeschool (Secular) This is what I started out with!
• OakMeadow (Secular)
• BookShark (Secular)
• Sonlight (Christian)
• Abeka (Christian)
• Memoria Press (Classical Christian)

Again, these complete NEW curricula can be very expensive. But homeschoolers often take good care of their curricula so that they can resell it as soon as they are done. So look for gently used ones available on eBay or also on Facebook homeschool buy/sell/trade groups.

4) Familiarize Yourself

I know. I know. I said three things. I'm sneaking in a fourth, but really it could be part of #3. 

This is actually just a reminder. After you've purchased your first curriculum and received it in the mail, go ahead and open it and look through it yourself BEFORE you start teaching. Don't be surprised. Read through the first few lessons in their entirety so you can get an idea of what will be happening.

Con mucho cariño...

Homeschool Essentials: The Core Knowledge Series

If you are thinking about homeschooling this coming year, I want to highly recommend that you consider the Core Knowledge series (aff link) and purchase the book for the grade your child will be starting. For example, next year, I'll have a sixth grader, so I'll pick up a copy of "What Your Sixth Grader Needs to Know."

The Core Knowledge Series of books has been my guide for many years. In it are all the basics that my children should know by the end of the year. I use this as my spine while using separate programs/lessons for teaching each subject. You can find them new and used in my Amazon store, Librería, or ask for them at your local library. Personally, I want to reference them all year long, so I like having copies of my own.

I LOVE this series. The books themselves are divided up by subject: Language & Literature, History & Geography, Visual Arts, Music, Math, and Science. They were not originally written for homeschoolers, but rather as a supplement for parents wanting to get more active in their children’s education. This series is a byproduct of the Core Knowledge Foundation whose mission is to improve our national education system through the creation of specific guidelines that promote a sound foundation and which builds upon itself. In other words, it is sequential and each grade builds upon the knowledge that was learned in the previous grade.

Important note! I should clarify right now that I am NOT (and have never been) a fan of Common Core Standards (CCS). While I think that it is good in theory, I think it is an atrocious failure in practice. Why? Because although it is great to have a guideline for what children should be learning in school, I know that kids learn in different ways and in their own time. I object to teachers being forbidden to teach anything outside of the CCS, or to teaching to tests. Our goal is to teach children to be functioning and contributing members of our society. My goal as a parent and teacher is to raise happy, healthy, considerate, and hard-working kids.

The series has recently been updated so you may find books with different covers. Grab them if you can!

5 Favorite Homeschool Math Curricula

As promised yesterday, here is a list of additional math curricula that are beloved by homeschoolers across the country. The important thing to remember is that you are not locked into any one curriculum. If you buy one and it is not a good fit for your family, there's no reason you why you can't move on to another one. I went through several math curricula before finally finding the one that works best for us, Teaching Textbooks, which I told you about yesterday.

I ALWAYS recommend that you:
a) take the assessment/placement tests before you buy so that your kid isn't bored with lessons that are too easy, or frustrated by lessons that are too difficult, and...
b) try to purchase or borrow a gently used curriculum to try it out first. If you love it, you can then purchase a brand new curriculum with no writing on the pages for the rest of the year or next year.

This post may contain affiliate links.

Mammoth Math / Matematicas Mamut

I'm starting with the curriculum that is available in both English AND SPANISH. (There aren't many!) Mammoth Math is available for 1st - 12th grades. This program is more for traditional learning. If you want a program available as printable worksheets that you can print and go, this might be the best choice for your family. The workbooks in this series are all available as downloads, but if you prefer printed workbooks, you can also purchase most of them as such.

On their website, you'll find free assessment tests, and MORE THAN 400 FREE SAMPLE PAGES. There are five different math series. Visit the Mammoth Math website to read about the difference between each one and see samples so you can pick the one that best suits your family's needs. And be sure to watch the videos where Maria Miller (the creator) talks about her program!

Saxon Math (aff)

If your child is more of a hands-on learner, then Saxon Math may be a great choice for you. I used this program with my daughter early on. I loved how it used lots of manipulatives (flash cards, tangrams, pattern blocks, bear counters, geoboards, color tiles, and more!) to help her learn basic concepts. The lessons also have you use lots of things found around your home, helping children to discover that learning opportunities are everywhere!

The lessons are not overwhelmingly long; new concepts are presented in small bits. And there is a LOT of repetition to help establish those new concepts and skills. I like that there is consistency in all of the lessons.

This program does require parental involvement in the younger grades. Students receive a workbook, but all instruction is given by parents using the teacher's lesson book.

Older students, however, get a textbook that is written directly to the student to allow for independent work.

PSST! And did you know that now through May 31st, you can save 30% on Saxon Math (and Phonics) over at ChristianBook.com (aff)? They have a great sale going on!

Singapore Math (aff)

I've never used this curriculum, however, from what I understand it is very different from all of the others. So if you are looking for a program that teaches outside the traditional methods. The curriculum description on ChristianBook.com says...

"Singapore Math Primary Mathematics is a favorite homeschool math curriculum! Students learn through concrete and pictorial methods before moving into abstract thought and development. Singapore Primary Math US edition encourages an active thinking process, thoughtful communication of mathematical ideas, and engaged problem solving."

It is based on a teaching method and curriculum used in Singapore, a nation that consistently ranks at the top of international assessments of student achievement in math.

Life of Fred (aff)

Available for K - 12, I'm focusing on the elementary math curriculum. Life of Fred is a series of math books that are unlike any other math curriculum. There are no boring lectures or workbooks but instead just fun stories about Fred Gauss, a child prodigy math genius. Children will be fascinated and love following along with his hilarious adventures! In each chapter, he encounters situations that call for solving math problems. The curriculum description on Educents.com says...

"The stories carry on through the exercises, leading the student through them. Many of the books have a series of quizzes called Bridges every few chapters. Passing a quiz means the student is ready for the next chapter. Some books have all the problem solutions in them, while others have separate answer keys or companions."

Math-U-See (aff)

I've not used this program, but know many homeschoolers who have and who absolutely love it. The lessons do require lots of parental involvement, but parents are told exactly how to teach each lesson via video-based instruction. Here is the description straight from ChristianBook.com...

"Math-U-See is a complete, skill-based, multi-sensory mastery curriculum for grades K-12. Designed to teach students specific skills in a definite, logical sequence, this systematic and cumulative approach will help students learn how to solve math problems and discover why they're solved in such a way.

The Math-U-See system features step-by-step procedures for introducing, reviewing, practicing, and mastering concepts; each lesson includes a video, and many of the lessons from Primer through Algebra 1 use hands-on manipulatives. Teachers watch the video lesson to learn the new concept and how to demonstrate it; they then present the new concept to the student using the build-write-say model; finally, students practice the new concept using lesson practice problems from the student workbook. Student-paced, teachers are given clear guidelines for determining when students have achieved mastery and are ready to move to the next lesson or level."

Teaching Textbooks: Math Curriculum for 3 - 12th Grade

I know that for many of you, the last day of school (aka the beginning of summer) is only a week or two away. But for many homeschoolers, now is the time when lots of great sales on curricula for next school year are taking place.

So for those of you looking for new curricula, and those of you who are considering homeschooling for the first time, these last two weeks of May will focus on curricula to use either during the summer or the coming school year.

Today, I'm sharing the math curricula that currently works for us.

Tomorrow I'll share a list of others that are available. Not all math programs are created the same. The program you choose should really depend on your child's learning style.

• Do they learn best with repetition? 
• Do the prefer hands-on activities to learn math concepts?
• Or do they learn better with visual examples?
• Are you looking for traditional ways to teach math or do you want a program that teaches outside the box?
• Do you want to teach your child yourself, or do you want an online or computer-based program?

Be thoughtful before you buy. Try the sample pages out first and see if you both like them.

Affiliate links used below. 

Teaching Textbooks (aff)

A few years ago, I switched to Teaching Textbooks for my own children. Before this, I had used several different others, but they just weren't a good fit for my kids. My kids were struggling or just hated math. So I finally tried Teaching Textbooks and it has been fantastic. I wouldn't say that my kids love math now, but there are way fewer tears and less frustration than what we had before.

It is really the only subject that we do on the computer. What I love about it is that it does not require an Internet connection; the program comes with four (or more) CDs. All you have to do is install it on your computer (it is super easy!) and assign your child a password.

The computer portion is awesome. Students do a lesson each day for a total of around 115 lessons. They begin by watching/listening to a brief lecture with visual examples of a new concept, then they proceed to complete 5 practice questions and 22 problems. The questions not only cover the current concept being learned but also repeat previous concepts to keep your child's math skills sharp. Each lesson builds on the last.

The presentation of the computer program is fun and engaging without distracting the student with too many graphics or illustrations. In the top corner is a spot where simple animations take place as incentives for completing the work. The student can flip through them to select a specific theme. From Rapunzel letting down her hair to robots and penguins, every time your child gets an answer right, the mini-story unfolds until it reaches the end. It usually takes about 3 - 4 right answers to see the animation complete its story. If you don't want this distraction, you can turn it off.

The great thing is that this computer program includes quizzes and KEEPS TRACK OF GRADES for you! Parents have their own separate login and can access each child's gradebook, see how they did, which questions they got wrong, and whether or not they watched to see the right way to get to the answer. You can even edit it if needed. Here's my daughter's. I love that I can see how she does overall, and which specific lessons (concepts) she's struggling with...

But what I like best about the program is that it also comes with a workbook with all the lessons. They are presented simply; no distractions. So if you prefer to vary the lessons by mixing both computer and paper lessons, you can do so.

I found that my daughter (in 7th grade) does really well with the computer lessons, but my son (in 5th grade) is doing better with the workbook. After a while of using the computer program, I found that my son was having trouble because he was trying to do everything in his head. He simply refused to use the dry erase board that I provided to work out the multi-step problems. And he was getting a lot of them wrong. Nothing I said helped. I also realized that he wasn't memorizing basic math concepts. Instead of knowing what 4 + 6 or 7 + 8 equaled, he just counted it out on the keypad. Yikes!!

So I essentially decided we needed to change how we used the program and had him start using the workbook instead of the computer. It forced him to work out the problems and I am delighted to report that now it is not unusual for him to get 100 percent of the problems correct. After he completes each lesson, he calls out his answers to me and I check them in the Answer Booklet. If he gets any wrong, we work it out together. But if I didn't know how to help him or show him the right way, I would simply pop in the disk, go to that lesson, enter in his answer, and then click on the button to see the solution.

He loves the little animations of the computer, though, so as a reward for his hard work, I allow him to use the computer once a week to complete his work. But I didn't agree to this until he had completed 25 lessons in the book first and we had established a routine.

I've heard some parents say that the program wasn't challenging enough for their children. I haven't found this to be the case with my own children, but maybe if your child is a math genius, this might not be the program for you. I do encourage you to visit TeachingTextbooks.com to try their sample lessons and see for yourself. REMEMBER: It's okay to skip ahead a grade or two if you need to! In fact, their website has placement tests to help you figure out which grade level would be best for your child.

I buy the curriculum here on ChristianBook.com, though, because they frequently have great sales.