Tried Orton-Gillingham or Barton?
If OG or Barton did not go far enough, here is what comes next
You invested time, money and hope, and your child worked hard. If progress stalled, it is not your fault and it is not theirs. There is a next step that builds on everything they learned.
What OG gets right
Your effort was not wasted
Orton-Gillingham and Barton are respected for good reasons. Everything your child learned about sounds and letters carries forward into our lessons.
Explicit teaching
Nothing is left to guesswork. Every skill is taught directly.
Systematic order
Skills build in a logical sequence from simple to complex.
Multisensory practice
Seeing, saying, hearing and writing work together.
Where progress stalls
Why rule-based programs often plateau
Families tell us the same story: good early gains, then a long flat stretch. These are the usual reasons.
Rules and exceptions
Dozens of spelling and syllable rules, each with exceptions, overload working memory. Struggling readers often have the least of it to spare.
Years of controlled text
Decodable readers are useful at first, but long stretches of them can delay real reading and the vocabulary that comes with it.
Mastery gates
Students must master each level before moving on. When one step will not stick, everything waits, and motivation fades.
Side by side
Same foundations, different direction
Our approach, speech to print, keeps the explicit, systematic and multisensory teaching you already trust. What changes is the direction. Instead of starting with letters and asking a child to turn print into sound, we start with the sounds your child already speaks and show how each one is written.
We use a small set of patterns instead of a long list of rules. Reading, spelling and writing are taught together in every lesson, and students read real text early. Progress moves in a spiral, so earlier skills are reviewed while new ones are added, instead of waiting behind a mastery gate.
From Barton to speech to print
Laurel made the same switch
Laurel trained in Orton-Gillingham in 2003 and taught OG and Barton Reading and Spelling for years. She saw what they did well, and she saw how many of her students stalled once the rules piled up.
In 2023, after studying reading science and linguistics, she began moving to speech to print. She earned her EBLI certification in April 2026. Families who come to us after OG often recognise the familiar structure, and notice how much less there is to memorize.
What to expect
The first three months
A clear baseline
A reading diagnostic shows what carried over from OG or Barton and what is still missing, so nothing is retaught for the sake of it.
New patterns, real text
Your child learns the core ideas of how English spelling works and starts reading real text, not just decodable readers.
Momentum
Spelling and reading start to support each other. Parents often notice confidence returning before the numbers move.
See the difference
Every session published to your Family Portal
After a program that did not deliver, you deserve to see exactly what is happening. Every lesson is published to your private Family Portal, and progress is calculated from the session records, not written up after the fact.
Home
Upcoming sessions and your action items.
Reading diagnostic
The full baseline, written for parents.
Progress report
Growth, attendance and every session in full.
Resources
Practice material and set-up guides.
FAQ
Questions from OG and Barton families
No. The diagnostic shows what your child already knows, and we build from there. What they learned about sounds and letters carries forward.
No. It shares OG’s explicit, systematic, multisensory foundations, but it starts from speech, uses patterns instead of rules and moves forward in a spiral instead of through mastery levels.
We recommend pausing other reading programs while your child learns our approach, because mixing rule-based and pattern-based teaching can be confusing. We will talk it through on your call.
Families often notice more confidence in the first few months. Most students work with us for 1 to 2 years, and we measure progress at the start, middle and end.
Yes. That is one of the most common reasons families come to us. Knowing rules is different from reading fluently, and our lessons put reading real text at the centre.
Yes, anywhere in Canada and the US with reliable internet, and in person in Prince George.
Tell us what you have tried
Book a free discovery call. We will look at where your child is now and what comes next.