This tutor training resource has been condensed from the publication 'Literacy face to face' produced by the TAFE NSW Access & General Education Curriculum Centre. Click here to see the whole document.
Learn a one-on-one literacy teaching method that really works... Even in difficult cases!
Hi All!
I'm a trainer at Yooralla Adult Education, my students are adults who have various disabilities, many of them are determined to gain more independence and control over their lives through learning to read. We all know how important reading is and most of us can only imagine how not being able to read would impact our lives. Many of my students have been participating literacy programs for years and still can't read, they are often frustrated and some have lost hope of ever learning to read. Motivation can be low and confidence even lower.
When I first started training at Yooralla I tried to work with people, teaching them how to read the way I had learned at primary school... sitting together painstakingly sounding out words, or using flash cards and trying repetition, repetition. The problem was, many of these students had already attended special schools and had still not learned to read... these methods did not work then and they were not going to work in their classes with me. While looking for websites with literacy learning materials that were suitable for adults. I stumbled across 'Literacy face to face' a resource, compiled by TAFE NSW and it had everything: literacy learning theory in simple language to help me evaluate my methods and practical exercises that actually worked!
'Literacy face to face' outlines the Language Experience Method, which teaches reading using words in context and recommends personally relevant texts that are familiar. I began using simple email messages dictated to me in the students own words and simple replies from their peers. To my surprise and delight, some of my most 'hopeless' cases began to identify words... At first just the words 'Hi' or 'Hello' and then surprisingly, peoples names. Then sentences like 'How are you?', 'I like...' and so on.
In this amazing free resource you will find helpful tips like:
Don't teach words in isolation because we use the surrounding words to help predict text as we read.
If student is reading a sentence and they read words incorrectly but the meaning of the sentence is the same, don't correct them.
And importantly...
Always set the student up to succeed in any exercise.
The practical exercises are simple but effective and can be played out a bit like a game. They are engineered so that student will always succeed and this builds invaluable confidence and motivation to continue learning. Using our email contact list provides student with real communication with their peers, messages going back and forth creates momentum and a natural continuum of familiar reading materials. Of course, I can't guarantee that these methods will work for every student but I have used it with great success so far and I cannot praise it enough!
Additionally, for teaching adults to read, you don't even need to read the whole document. I read only two chapters that were relevant for what I wanted to achieve with my beginners.
The chapters are:
Read this first: A helpful section on how people actually read, this changed everything I did!
and..
The Beginning Reader/Writer: With tips and practical exercises!
Ok... so there has to be a catch right! The catch is that this method might be hard to use in a group, it's really designed for one-on-one learning. For my groups I get a volunteer to come in and work with an individual... Then the student gets the attention they need and they build confidence, trust and a rapport with that one person. It's ideal for the student to try at home with a friend or family member. I do recommend setting some basic homework because students should practice what they have learned in between classes to aid retention. I simply print the message we have been working on, in large print and send it home for them to read with a friend or family member.
Once you've experienced some success with this method I urge you to inform parents, carers, friends or volunteers about the resource... they can help out by learning the method themselves and helping someone they care about to learn a skill that will change everything for them.
I've condensed some of the 'Read this first' section below to give you a taste of what you can expect... Click here to download the whole document!
Good Luck!
Carmen Harris
Trainer & Assessor
Yooralla- AbleLinks Adult Education
Lifestyle Support & Choice
[email protected]
www.yooralla.com.au
Literacy face to face: Training that works!
Read this first...
How do we read?
Before you read on, pause for a minute to think about how you think you learnt to read and how, as an efficient reader now, you manage to turn those squiggles on the page into meaning. You probably said to yourself something like: I learnt the sounds made by the letters
then learnt to blend them together then understood the meaning of the word. Now, as an efficient reader, that process is simply faster.
That is only part of what is involved in reading. Many people who ‘know their sounds’ still have trouble with reading. This section will point to some other very important aspects of the reading process.
Before you read on, pause for a minute to think about how you think you learnt to read and how, as an efficient reader now, you manage to turn those squiggles on the page into meaning. You probably said to yourself something like: I learnt the sounds made by the letters
then learnt to blend them together then understood the meaning of the word. Now, as an efficient reader, that process is simply faster.
That is only part of what is involved in reading. Many people who ‘know their sounds’ still have trouble with reading. This section will point to some other very important aspects of the reading process.
How we really read!: The context of the text
When we are reading in real situations (as opposed to ‘learning to read’ lists of words), we have another set of clues to help us and these come from the context of the material. Real texts don’t have to be whole passages of writing. A real text might just be the student’s name and address written on a dummy application form. Or it might just be the word on a road traffic sign. The more clues there are to suggest what the word might be, the easier it is to identify the sounds made by the letters.
For example, when we pick up the sports section of the newspaper we already make predictions about what we are going to read there and the kind of language we will meet. Those predictions are different from those we make if we are looking at the TV guide, or the motor traffic handbook, or a flier advertising the specials at the supermarket, or the street sign at the end of the street.
These four systems of clues interact to produce efficient reading:
1. The letters in the words
2. The flow or grammar of the sentence
3. The meaning of the passage
4. The context of the text.
For example, when we pick up the sports section of the newspaper we already make predictions about what we are going to read there and the kind of language we will meet. Those predictions are different from those we make if we are looking at the TV guide, or the motor traffic handbook, or a flier advertising the specials at the supermarket, or the street sign at the end of the street.
These four systems of clues interact to produce efficient reading:
1. The letters in the words
2. The flow or grammar of the sentence
3. The meaning of the passage
4. The context of the text.
Summary
Important Tips!: Implications of this for helping your student
• You need to help your student use all four sets of clues, not just the clues given by the letter/sound relationship. ‘Sound it out’ is not the only answer.
• For this reason, it will be easier for your student if they learn to read using whole, real language in real contexts rather than lists of isolated words and letters.
• Teach the correspondence between letters and sounds in the context of whole words in meaningful contexts.
Get 'Literacy face to face' it's free!
This tutor training resource has been condensed from the publication 'Literacy face to face' produced by the TAFE NSW Access & General Education Curriculum Centre. Click here to see the whole document.