Dyslexia remediation, Saxon Phonics Intervention vs. Barton Reading and Spelling

[lockwoodlucky]

My 10 year old son has just been diagnosed with dyslexia and I am overwhelmed with remediation choices. The neuropsychologist recommended Barton for my son but when she showed me the curriculum it closely resembled the Saxon phonics that I am familiar with. I was just wondering is Barton that much different than The Saxon Phonics Intervention? And is it worth the thousands of dollars? I have no problems spending the money but if there is another program that is comparable for less I would prefer to go that route. Also after reading " The Dyslexia Help Handbook for Parents", I know he is considered to have  Multi-dimensional dyslexia; meaning he is lacking phonemic awareness and has deficits in processing and in memory. Any suggestions would be great. Short and sweet replies would be wonderful seeing's that I am already overwhelmed with reading long and elaborate materials concerning this new diagnosis. Thank you so much for your time.

Shawna

[ElizabethB]

You need to post on the learning challenges board. Do the Barton screening, you may need to start with something like LiPS before doing any OG program. Recipe for Reading is the cheapest OG option out there, $27 for the manual, if you use a white board to write out the words, that is all you need to buy.

 

Also, what was used to teach reading? If a significant number of sight words or whole language practices were used, it might not be true dyslexia but problems caused by whole language teaching, in which case remediation is much quicker with nonsense words and syllables. True dyslexia will require a lot more repetition.

 

My phonics lessons and Webster's Speller have been helpful for all my remedial students regardless of their underlying diagnoses, the focus on syllables is helpful. Those with guessing problems from sight words needed nonsense words as well.

[momto2Cs]

We had very good success with Reading Horizons, an OG-based program.

[displace]

Yes, a thread on learning challenges board would be helpful. I'm visiting from there so I thought I'd briefly answer.

 

With dyslexia, one of the most important things to do is to remediate. There may be phonics missing that need shoring up. Alternatively DS may not have any gaps. In general there needs to be a program that addresses all reading and spelling rules, plus sight words, grammar, lit, fluency, comprehension, etc. Not all programs have everything. But most should have all the reading and spelling rules and strong guidance with sight words.

 

In dyslexia, a lot of students guess words while reading. They need to be taught sounding out only, and whatever program used needs to evaluate for any gaps.

 

Barton teaches everyone from the beginning, breaking down phonics of words and letters and teaches it all. Phonics programs are a good start., but I don't know enough about Saxon to comment. If your DS is guessing words or has relatively low comprehension or fluency, my guess would be there are gaps.

[OneStepAtATime]

Agree with others.  Post on the Learning Challenges board.

 

FWIW, I use Barton.  I have not used Saxon so I can't speak to Saxon but there are a lot of phonics based or OG based programs.  Most do not break things down the way a program designed specifically for dyslexics will.  There are several programs that are usually successful with dyslexics.  Barton is only one of them, but it is probably the easiest for a layman to implement by far.  

 

Barton breaks things down into much smaller pieces and reinforces each piece consistently over time.  It also then pulls all those pieces back together again.  It incorporates reading, spelling, and grammar.  It directly and systematically addresses letter reversals that many dyslexics have.  The system is designed to help parents help dyslexic kids that may also have other areas of weakness.

 

To get a perspective on the cost, think of it this way.  Many dyslexics need a very specific, targeted, Orton-Gillingham based system for real success.  Implementation can be very challenging, time consuming, etc.  When they snag it is hard to know why or how to address the issues.  Hiring a trained professional that works specifically with dyslexic students can mean a cost of $50 - $150 PER HOUR, or even more.  We went that route at first.  Not only did it cost us a lot of money, the kids actually made little progress.  We spent more in one month of specialized tutoring than the cost of 3 levels of Barton.

 

We switched to Barton because I was tired of tossing money at people who were charging a fortune, could only see my kids two days a week, we had to go even if the kids were tired and having a bad day (so the session wasn't nearly as useful as it could have been), and the sessions were 1 hour, no matter what.  And they were not progressing much at all.  My child is doing well and wants to keep going?  Too bad. Session is over.  My child is really struggling and getting demoralized and really needs to just stop for the day?  Too bad.  Session is one hour.  Stick it out, even if little progress is being made.  I honestly don't blame the tutors.  They have to set up their schedules to accommodate multiple students as well as other obligations.  But it isn't the best way to handle dyslexia remediation if you can find other options.

 

Barton is fully scripted.  There are also training DVDs.  There is quite a bit of tutor support on line.  Susan Barton herself will talk with you on the phone if you run into snags.  It really is desinged for a parent with no training in how to tutor a dyslexic can actually tutor, even if you are dyslexic yourself (but you AND your student MUST pass the pre-screening).  There are so many advantages to doing this yourself, besides saving a ton of money.  

 

For a few examples, you can schedule sessions every day so your child gets consistent, daily, targeted instruction.  You can do longer sessions or if it works better for your child you can do two shorter sessions each day.  When your child is sick you don't have to worry that they have missed a tutoring session.  You can directly monitor your child's progress to determine if the program is working or if it might need tweaking (or even needs to be dumped and something new tried).  Also, it can be resold for nearly the purchase price.  Just make sure to get a second set of tiles ($10) to keep with the level you are selling.  Also, if you decide not to sell, you can tutor other children for extra income on the side.  The material is reusable.  Just put the student practice pages in page protectors so you always have them available.

 

Also, Barton goes all the way through prep for High School so it doesn't just re-mediate basic reading skills.  It gives a pretty solid foundation in things like Greek and Latin root words and other background knowledge that can be extremely useful in higher level classes.

 

But again, I don't know about Saxon.  I have not used the LA part of Saxon.

[OneStepAtATime]

And I realize my response wasn't short and sweet.  Sorry.  I just wanted to make my thoughts clear.  :)

[lockwoodlucky]

Thank you😊 I just reposted on the other board. Thanks for the insight.

[FairProspects]

We had very good success with Reading Horizons, an OG-based program.

 

I've known others who had good success too, but I would caution that this is not a true OG program and we actually just quit using it and got a refund because ds was getting too frustrated by the discrepancies. I had to spend time reinforcing the OG rules that Reading Horizons left out or amended incorrectly I felt our time could be better used with just straight OG work from the beginning. I read some reviews that stated this same comment and I ignored them, lol, thinking it would be no big deal, but it actually did turn out to be a problem for us at least. Thankfully they do have a great free trial & money back guarantee so you can use the program for quite awhile to decide.

[imagine.more]

I've used Saxon Phonics as a teacher and it is nothing like Barton. Not nearly multi-sensory enough (a vital component for these right-brained dyslexic kiddos), moves too fast through the different rules, and has almost no phonemic awareness practice which is a key component of any Orton-Gillingham dyslexic reading program. Several of my Kindergarteners still could not read after a year of Saxon's intensive phonics program.

 

We use Barton with DD13 and it's been great, she had not progressed past a 1st grade reading level in 5th grade when we started. Now she's made real progress in the past year using Barton. I suggest buying level 1 and then when you finish it sell it and buy level 2, then sell level 2 and buy level 3, and so on. That's how we manage, we just sell each level once she passes the post-test with a 95% or better. I do fluency drills and games with her from Susan Barton's website while we wait for the next level to get bought and shipped to us. You can always sell the Barton levels on Ebay for $200-250 each so really you're only out $50 a level in my experience.