I don’t mean to put a negative twist on Barton, but I wanted to share our experience. I did Barton for a while with my 11 yo daughter (10 at the time). She has dyslexia and some other processing issues, which I’m sure contributed to the outcome. Barton was working very well for her until she got into level 3. Then it became a lot of spelling rules. As there became more and more spelling rules, my daughter became frustrated, because she just could not retain all the information and remember all the rules. (even with the pictures) And then there are exceptions, which make it more confusing.
Maybe a child with just dyslexia can work through that, but we ended up stopping in the middle of level 3. For my daughter, I think her spelling is getting better just by reading and writing. Basically memorization. Barton did help initially with the reading, but the spelling rules were too much. Since you have access to Barton for free, that’s great. It is expensive. I don’t know what kinds of problems your son has, so I just wanted to let you know that Barton does not work for all children. So, if you come to a point where it seems like it is no longer working, then you may need to move on to something else.
Since we stopped Barton a little over a year ago, we have used Growing with Grammar and Soaring with Spelling. My daughter has done very well with those. She is progressing in her reading, but not independent yet. I have put her back into Heart of Dakota and stopped Soaring with Spelling, because she will be doing dictation passages, and for writing will do copywork. She is making progress. It is slow, but I have seen more progress during these first three months of school than I had seen in the two years before. I finally feel I have her in a place where we can settle in and work though the guides without frustration. So, each one needs to decide what works and what doesn’t for our child. I had to make changes several times before coming to this point. Maybe Barton is just what you need. I just wanted to share our experience, as each child is unique and it will take different techniques for each one. Hope all goes well for you and your son.