For more information, please contact Jacki Hike at jhike@eaglespeak.org.

LARP (Language Arts Remediation Program) is designed to provide parents with the tools needed to tutor their children who are struggling in reading, writing, and spelling due to a language processing disorder such as Dyslexia. Training is provided for parents on how to use the Barton System, a simplified Orton-Gillingham based system which research has shown as "best practices" for helping students progress in these skills. The Barton system has proved to be ideal for young students at high-risk of reading failure. It provides exactly what the National Reading Panel states are the essentials of an early intervention program: systematic, explicit, and intensive instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension.

The Orton-Gillingham Multi-sensory Method is different from other reading methods in two ways: what is taught and how it is taught.

What is taught:

• Phonemic Awareness is the first step. You must teach someone how to listen to a single word or syllable and break it into individual phonemes. They also have to be able to take individual sounds and blend them into a word, change sounds, delete sounds, and compare sounds -- all in their head. These skills are easiest to learn before someone brings in printed letters.
• Phoneme/Grapheme Correspondence is the next step. Here you teach which sounds are represented by which letter(s), and how to blend those letters into single-syllable words.
• The Six Types of Syllables that compose English words are taught next. If students know what type of syllable they're looking at, they'll know what sound the vowel will make. Conversely, when they hear a vowel sound, they'll know how the syllable must be spelled to make that sound.
• Probabilities and Rules are then taught. The English language provides several ways to spell the same sounds. For example, the sound /SHUN/ can be spelled either TION, SION, or CION. The sound of /J/ at the end of a word can be spelled GE or DGE. Dyslexic students need to be taught these rules and probabilities.
• Roots and Affixes, as well as Morphology are then taught to expand a student's vocabulary and ability to comprehend (and spell) unfamiliar words. For instance, once a student has been taught that the Latin root TRACT means pull, and a student knows the various Latin affixes, the student can figure out that retract means pull again, contract means pull together, subtract means pull away (or pull under), while tractor means a machine that pulls.

How it is taught:

• Simultaneous Multi-sensory Instruction: students use all of their senses when they learn (visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic) are better able to store and retrieve the information. So a beginning student might see the letter A, say its name and sound, and write it in the air -- all at the same time.
• Intense Instruction with Ample Practice: instruction is much more intense, and offer much more practice, than for regular readers.
• Direct, Explicit Instruction: dyslexic students do not intuit anything about written language. So, you must teach them, directly and explicitly, each and every rule that governs our written words. And you must teach one rule at a time, and practice it until it is stable in both reading and spelling, before introducing a new rule.
• Systematic and Cumulative: Students start at the very beginning and create a solid foundation with no holes. You must teach the logic behind our language by presenting one rule at a time and practicing it until the student can automatically and fluently apply that rule both when reading and spelling. You must continue to weave previously learned rules into current lessons to keep them fresh and solid. The system must make logical sense to our students, from the first lesson through the last one.
• Synthetic and Analytic: dyslexic students must be taught both how to take the individual letters or sounds and put them together to form a word (synthetic), as well as how to look at a long word and break it into smaller pieces (analytic). Both synthetic and analytic phonics must be taught all the time.
• Diagnostic Teaching: the teacher must continuously assess their student's understanding of, and ability to apply, the rules. The teacher must ensure the student isn't simply recognizing a pattern and blindly applying it. And when confusion of a previously-taught rule is discovered, it must be retaught.

The Barton System was developed for parents and/or tutors to work one-on-one with a student. It has ten levels and each student will progress through the levels at his/her own pace. Training is provided one level at a time. In order for adequate progress to be made, it takes approximately 3 to 5 months for a parent to complete one level with their child while tutoring consistently 2-3 times per week for at least 1 to 1 1/2 hours each session. The more frequently the student is tutored, the more progress he or she will make. All students progress at different rates. However, a student's skills can typically be brought up to grade level in approximately a year and a half. By the time a child has gone through all ten levels, they should be reading at a mid-ninth grade level. As a school we provide all the basic materials that the parents need to use with their child(ren). More information about the Barton system can be found at: www.bartonreading.com.