A friend's daughter was diagnosed with dyslexia within the past year. Her doctor recommended a tutor who used the Barton Reading and Spelling program, and she has had great success with it. She has completed the first four levels. That tutor is unable to continue working with her, and the family asked if I would pick up where she left off.
Before becoming a stay at home mom, I taught title I and was a reading tutor, and I have some experience teaching Wilson fundamentals. This girl was actually one of my students. I watched the training DVDs for level 5 and started tutoring her in this program a few weeks ago. I feel everything is going great, although sometimes it takes me a few seconds to recall the unique name Barton has given the spelling rules, or figure out which bag of tiles I need.
However, I recently saw a page on Barton's website that says no one, not even a person with a doctorate in reading education, could pick up at level five and be successful. I am now worried that my inexperience with the program will set her up for failure, even though it hasn't been an issue yet. At the same time, there is nobody else in our rural area who has experience with this program.
Can someone who has worked through this program tell me more about how necessary it is to have experience teaching the earlier levels? Or offer some advice?