READING F

OR ADULT

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HOT QUESTIONS

• What are the primary causes of poor reading skills in adults?

• What should be the targets of instruction to improve literacy in adults?

• What can we do to efficiently increase reading skills in adults?

REASONS ADULTS IN THE AECC SAY THEY WANT TO READI want to read to my children…

I want to be able to read (and understand) the Bible…

I want to go to technical school…

I want a better job…

I want to read the newspaper…

I don’t want my spouse (or children) to read to me…

I want to use computers…

I want to get my GED…

WHAT CAUSES READING PROBLEMS?

• Learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, often overlooked or misdiagnosed, may have turned adults off from reading.

• Students from poor rural areas, or with a poor preparation for learning to read may have been left behind because of inadequate instruction

• Failure at an early age, unattended, leads to an inability to recover and a lifetime of shame and unachieved dreams

• Adults whose parents did not value literacy, or had poor school attendance may never have felt the need to accept reading for pleasure.

SKILLS REQUIRED FOR GOOD READERS

Reliable strategies for identifying unknown words in texts:• Phonemic analysis: phonics• Other analytic strategies

• Who • What • Where • When• How• Why

• Guessing from the context: requires confidence

VEHN DIAGRAM FOR COMPREHENSION

CoVisualAuditory

Comprehension

Language

WEAK PHONEMIC AWARENESS

A primary cause of decoding and spelling problems is difficulty in judging sounds within words. This weakness in phonological processing causes individuals to omit, substitute and reverse sounds and letters within words.

Second language students: Individuals with weak phonological processing cannot get the words off the page. They cannot judge if what they say matches what they see.

SYMPTOMS

Many adults have difficulty judging sounds within words. Although they see letters correctly, they cannot detect their errors in reading or spelling:

This causes errors such as: Decoding errors such as steam for stream,

imagination for immigration, claps for clasp etc. Spelling errors such as gril for girl, cret for

correct, etc. Pronunciation errors such as death for deaf,

flusterated for frustrated etc.

MOST SERIOUS CHALLENGES TO ADULTS WITHOUT GOOD READING SKILLS They still do not understand how letters

are used to represent the sounds in words and cannot reliable ‘decode’ print accurately

Their reading is so slow and labored that they do not enjoy reading, and have difficulty concentrating on the meaning of what they read

Their background knowledge and vocabulary are so limited that it is hard for them to understand what they read

WORD IDENTIFICATION STRATEGY: DISSECT• Discover the context

• Isolate the prefix

• Separate the suffix

• Say the stem

• Examine the stem

• Check with someone

• Try the dictionary

INCREASING READING COMPREHENSION STRATEGIES

Before reading:

• Activate prior knowledge

• Preview headings

During reading:

• Visual imagery

• Comprehension monitoring

After reading:

• Summarize in own words

• Ask clarifying questions

5TH GRADE READING LEVEL

Contemplating this request, Monsieur l’Abbaye shook his head. “I’m ready to retire, so I’m not available for hire. I’m sorry, I simply cannot paint your portrait’. But seeing the disappointment in Senor Bartoli’s eyes, he continued, ‘Well, there’s a possibility if you can find it in your heart to allow me to explore the limits of my abilities. Not for money, mind you, but for food and a bed instead.’

STUDENT COMPREHENSION ISSUES

Contemplating this request, Monsieur l’Abbaye shook his head. “I’m ready to retire, so I’m not available for hire. I’m sorry, I simply cannot paint your portrait’. But seeing the disappointment in Senor Bartoli’s eyes, he continued, ‘Well, there’s a possibility if you can find it in your heart to allow me to explore the limits of my abilities. Not for money, mind you, but for food and a bed instead.’

COMPREHENSION ISSUES

Vocabulary: (sight words) e.g. ‘contemplating’

Phrases and idioms: e.g. ‘find it in my heart’

Usage: e.g. ‘simply can’t paint’ or ‘mind you’

Understanding: ‘…explore the limits of my abilities’

WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM ADULTS?

Most should be able to acquire beginning word analysis strategies relatively quickly (15-60 hours) depending on where they start, which will then start to increase their reading accuracy and independence

Reading fluency will take longer to acquire, and depends a lot on their willingness to practice

Comprehension will increase as their reading accuracy and fluency grows, and will also be helped as they learn to think actively while reading.

WHAT ARE ‘SIGHT’ WORDS?

• Sight words include any word that readers have practiced reading sufficiently often to be read from memory

• Adults must correctly pronounce words 5-10 times before they become sight words

• To be a fluent reader, an adult must be able to recognize most words in a passage ‘by sight’

COMPUTER SOFTWARE ADVANTAGES

• Infinite patience• Immediate feedback• Repetition• Oral, visual and written

stimuli

AECC READING AND VOCABULARY SOFTWARE

• ELLIS• Rosetta Stone (for English)• Reading Horizons• Skills Bank• English Discoveries• Side by Side

TOOLS FOR DEVELOPING READING SKILLS• Use ‘authentic’* reading

whenever possible• Have students bring in examples

of what they want to read• Use newspapers and newscasts

to give students a reference frame

AUTHENTIC READING

Authentic Reading is reading a variety of text for real purposes. Authentic reading is most like that which occurs in everyday life.

Authentic Reading includes:

• reading that is meaningful, relevant, and useful to the reader;

• supporting readers with a print-rich environment;

• providing choice within a variety of forms and genres;

• focusing on communicating ideas or shared understandings;

• providing authentic meaning-making experiences: for pleasure, to be informed, or to perform a task.

ON AUTHENTICITY:

“ Reading activities should parallel the ‘real world’ as closely as possible. Since language is a tool of communication, methods and materials should concentrate on the message and not the medium. The purposes of reading should be the same working with students one-on-one as they are in real life.”

Clark and Silberstein, 1977 5.1

TODAY’S FRONT PAGES

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/

Each day, Washington DC’s Newseum ,museum site brings you front pages from around the world – almost 400 of them. See how the same story is covered in different places or compare what makes headlines in different regions. Students can read headlines from their hometown or country.

PDFs are available if you want to read the part of the article that is on the front page.

ALLWORDS.COM

http://allwords.com

AUTHENTIC NEWS

http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/

These are ready to use lessons based on breaking news stories. Several news stories are presented each week at different levels and with wonderful links.

News articles can be viewed chronologically or by specific themes, including: Environment, Business English, Health, Issues, Famous People and Gossip, Technology, and World News.

Selections include a great variety of pre-reading activities to enhance vocabulary and overall comprehension. Discussion questions and answers are included. Listening is also available.

RANDALL’S CYBER LISTENING LAB

http://www.esl-lab.com

This site offers easy, medium and difficult listening exercises

TV 411TV 411 has some wonderful sites, including one for reading strategies. For students struggling with understanding content and inferences, this site gives them short (just a few sentences) vignettes and asks them a question. Excellent for low level readers.

Check out these lessons:Comprehending Business Problems Finding Faulty Logic Parts of a Newspaper Reading Charts and Graphs Reading Maps Reading the Fine Print Scanning for Specifics Strategies for Better Reading Structure of a News Story Summarizing Using Context Clues 

http://www.tv411.org/

ENGLISH READING DATABASE FOR ADULTSwww.insightin.com

Vocabulary Test   Answer 50 multiple choice vocabulary items and find out your approximate vocabulary size.

Vocabulary Profiler   extract words between frequency of 7,000 and 20,000 from a Web page.

Online Dictionary   a clickable online dictionary powered by WordNet database.

Reading Database   Search reading materials by level of difficulty, subject of interest and type of writing.

Reading Online   look up words and idioms while reading on the Web.

Learning Guide   articles and links for learning and learning English 

CIELITO’S ESL LITERACY WEBSITE FOR BEGINNERS

This site is created for beginning ESL literacy students. 

 Click a topic on the navigation bar on the left to work on different basic skills activities.

 Click a topic on the table below to work on different basic grammar activities.

 The Preliteracy page is designed for students who are preliterate and low-literate learners in their first language. Most of the exercises there involve listening and reinforcing vocabulary learned in class.

 

There are also exercises in this website that are appropriate for the more advanced beginning literacy learners, indicated as High Beginner, and literacy students who learn at a faster pace. They can also be used for review by higher level students.

CIELITO’S ESL LITERACY WEBSITE FOR BEGINNERShttp://home.earthlink.net/~brekkmail/

THANK YOU FOR VOLUNTEERING!

ABE, GED and ESL students often need special help to move forward with their lives, and develop a career. Tutoring allows them to succeed at a higher level than they could without you. The AECC is your support. Let us know how we can help you help your student.

Thank you!