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Nobel Laureate

Here are some facts about retention:

• Most children who are held back do not catch up academically
• Retention is one of the most powerful predictors of high school dropout
• Sixth grade students ranked grade retention as the most stressful life event — even MORE stressful than losing a parent or going blind!

Studies of academic achievement and socio-emotional adjustment between retained students and similarly under-achieving but promoted peers, reported in 19 studies during the 1990's, yielded significant negative effects of grade retention across all areas of achievement and socio-emotional impact (Jimerson, 2001).

For links to these studies, click here.

For a list of 10 strategies, you can use to fight mandatory retention, click here.

Click here to watch Susan Barton's 8 minute video chat on retention and opting out.

Please do not stop tutoring over the summer.

If your child's school is providing intervention using the Barton Reading & Spelling System, or any other Orton-Gillingham system, it is vital to continue tutoring during the summer months.

Instead of taking the summer off, Susan Barton strongly encourages parents to increase the frequency of tutoring. Your child can make significant progress during the summer while the pressures of homework and testing are absent.

In this 7 minute video, Susan Barton explains why it is so important for your child to continue tutoring over the summer.

Parents Call It A Miracle
By Susan Barton

Parents and teachers call it a miracle.

Susan Barton loves hearing from Barton tutors who monitor progress using normed standardized tests, as Karyl does:

Dear Susan,

I have been using the Barton Reading & Spelling System for 16 years. The growth in mystudents' reading and spelling skills is amazing.

I use the Word Identification and Spelling Test (the WIST) to monitor progress.

Most of my students have scores in only the 1st to 5th percentile on their first day of tutoring.

I give the WIST again at the end of Level 4. Their reading and spelling scores then range from 45th to 55th percentile.

But I urge parents to continue the tutoring process because by the end of Level 8, their children’s reading and spelling scores jump to the 75th to 95th percentile — way above their peers.

Parents and teachers call it a miracle. But I know it is the Barton System that makes their success possible. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Karyl Rapport
Certified Barton Tutor at the Advanced Level
Los Angeles, CA

To see this entire story, listen to it, or share it, click here.

NEW Games from
The Reading Spelling Connection

The Reading Spelling Connection has just released “4 or More!” game boards for Levels 9 and 10 of the Barton Reading & Spelling System.

These two new games complete the “4 or More!” game series. Click here to purchase online.

There are nine sets in the series – each corresponding to Levels 2 through 10 of the Barton Reading & Spelling System. Each set has at least one game for every lesson within that level.

In total, there are 160 games to reinforce and review the Barton lessons.

The “4 or More!” games can be played either in person or online.

A free sampler packet is also available at the Read-Spell store that includes complete lists and a sample game from each set.

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