Some of the best resources that I've ever seen for true literacy level
learners were collected, adapted, and or created by an amazing colleague
that I used to work with at REEP.  We had the situation that many of you
have described, where we seldom found enough true literacy level learners
registered at the same time and the same site to create a class just for
them; so they were integrated into our lowest beginning level class.  Debbie
saw the need and began researching and reading what works for literacy level
learners.  She developed a pull-out program that gave these learners
(identified in collaboration with their lifeskills teacher) a half-hour of
focused literacy skills instruction every day.  She trained some very
dedicated and talented tutors to work together to conduct the classes, and
she developed an outline and materials and resources for the sessions.  She
borrowed strategies and activities from adult native English reading
instruction, reading instruction for nonnative English-speaking children,
and native English speaking children.  She used clip art, felt, sandpaper,
poster board, and laminated worksheets-among other things--to provide the
tutors and students with resources for sight word development, vocabulary
matching, discriminating sounds, blending sounds, building words and
sentences, sound-symbol correspondence practice, etc.  I can't even begin to
describe all the bingo cards, concentration games, wipe-off cards with
missing letters, and pencil boxes of sand where students could write letters
with their fingers that Debbie put together.  

 

I admire the way Debbie took a challenge and made it not only an opportunity
to help the students, but an opportunity to learn and expand her skills as a
teacher.  As I said above, she read and researched and tinkered and tried
out.  I also admire that she never, ever refused an opportunity to share
what she did or how she did it.  She would pass out CDs with copies of her
worksheets and materials.  She would take a lunch break to show another
teacher how to create inexpensive "hardcover" books that literacy students
could fill (with support) with photos, vocabulary words, and sentences
directly from their lives.  I think that for those working with literacy
level learners, who are always trying to find or develop effective tools to
support their students, that attitude of collegiality and collaboration is
priceless (it's priceless for any teacher, really).  There are some good
commercially produced resources out there (did I mention that Literacy Plus
A and B from Pearson and the Sam and Pat: Beginning Reading and Writing
series from Heinle, and Linmore's Personal Stories books all have good
things that you can pull from them?), but there are not enough.  If literacy
level teachers can share the resources and strategies they create
themselves, as many of you have done during this discussion, we'll all be
richer for the effort.

 

Thanks for all that you've shared this week and for making this a discussion
that demonstrated that kind of mutual support.

 

Have a great weekend.

 

MaryAnn

 

 

MaryAnn Florez

Project Director

Adult Education Professional Development Center

D.C. LEARNs

1612 K Street, N.W. Suite 300

Washington, DC 20006

202/331-0141, x25 (tel)

202/331-0143 (fax)

www.dclearns.org/aepdc 

mflorez at dclearns.org  

 

 

****************************************************************************
**************************

The Adult Education Professional Development Center at DC LEARNs -
Connecting D.C. adult educators with professional development opportunities
and resources.

www.dclearns.org/aepdc

****************************************************************************
********************

The D.C. LEARNs Mission

To work with Washington, D.C. literacy programs, learners, and supporters to
strengthen adult, family and children's literacy services, and present a
strong, unified voice on the importane of literacy as an investment in the
community.

 

D.C. LEARNs' literacy calendar lists significant literacy events or
deadlines, as well as a selected number of regional and national events that
may be of interest to the D.C. literacy community.  If you know of any
upcoming events in the D.C. region, please submit them to be added to our
calendar at info at dclearns.org 

 

You can visit our calendar at http://dclearns.org/calendar2/plans.cgi 

 

If you want to volunteer as a teacher or tutor for GED, ESL, ABE (Adult
Basic Education), Computers, or Children's Literacy, please enter your
information into our volunteer database at www.readoutloud.org 

  _____  

From: Betsy Wong [mailto:betsywong at comcast.net] 
Sent: Friday, December 14, 2007 9:17 AM
To: 'The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List'
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 2008] Classroom ideas and resources

 

Welcome, everyone, to the last day of our discussion on practical strategies
for working with literacy-level adult English language learners!

 

We've heard some innovative ideas for building learners' vocabulary and have
had an interesting talk about the pros and cons of using read-alouds in the
ESL classroom.

 

I wanted to take the discussion one step further and address the needs of
learners who cannot yet read sentences or words from textbooks.

 

Simply put, what are some ways to help learners acquire sound/symbol
correspondence?  Sight recognition of high-frequency words? The mechanics of
actual writing?

 

What strategies, activities, and materials can you share?

 

I wanted to recommend one resource that's been around for a while: "Sounds
Easy! Phonics, Spelling, and Pronunciation," by Sharon Bassano (available
from Alta Book Center Publishers for $27.95, at
<http://www.altaesl.com/Detail.cfm?CatalogID=1543>
http://www.altaesl.com/Detail.cfm?CatalogID=1543)

 

This book has clearly-illustrated photocopiable exercises for grades 5
through adult that help learners identify patterns in spelling and
pronunciation. I find that it's easy to adapt the exercises to the varied
needs of my learners - and great for a multilevel class. For instance, an
exercise emphasizing two consonants  might be useful to literacy learners in
terms of establishing the sound that goes with each letter. At the same
time, learners who can already read and write would find value in the
exercise of accurately producing and discriminating between two somewhat
similar sounds.

 

I look forward to hearing more ideas!

 

---------------------------------

Betsy Lindeman Wong

Lead Teacher

Alexandria Adult and Community Education

 

 

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