Transcript Working with Non-literate Learners

Working with Non-literate
Learners
Alysan Croydon
In this workshop you will…
• Experience a literacy lesson
• Discuss tools and strategies effective in
teaching non-literate adults
• Learn about approaches, tools and
activities to teach beginning literacy
• Identify strategies to differentiate tasks
for non-literate learners
Workshop Agenda
• Introduction
Today, we..
• Literacy lesson
• A taxonomy of strategies
(#1,#2 ,#3 )
• Adapting tasks for non-literate students
Who are we ?
Please use your ✔ or ✗ cards.
I teach in a community college setting
I teach in a community based setting
I teach in a K-12 setting
I teach large classes ( 25+ students)
I teach classes ( 10-20 students)
I teach small groups ( under 10)
I teach classes with mixed literate and non-literate
students
I teach a class of students that are all non-literate
I teach in an open-entry program
I teach refugees and immigrants
I teach monolingual classes
Warm up Activity
Please participate in the grid activity.
Steps:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Introduce pattern
Repetition practice
Model of grid organization
Student model
Group work: grid completion
Follow up activities on data generated in the survey
Grid example with no print
Hindi Lesson
Please participate in the Hindi lesson
An approach to teaching nonliterate learners
Input/Oral work
Only start to
read what a
student can
already say
Word
attack
skills
Environmental print
, document literacy
Teacher made material
Student generated material
A Taxonomy of Strategies
#1 Needs Assessment
• Find out your students’ levels, skill
proficiencies, needs and interests.
Assessment of learning needs
Level and skills diagnostic tools:
– Writing/ reading sample
– Alphabet cloze
– Letter/number recognition test
– Self- selection based on choice of
materials
– Observation (see questions in your
handout)
Assessment of learning goals
When students can’t complete surveys..
• Use pictures
• Choose pictures in picture dictionary
• “A day in the life of….” picture survey
#2 Begin with Listening and
Speaking
What is your…..name?
What is your ….address?
What is your…..phone #?
Accommodations for nonliterate learners
• Introduce vocab. via TPR or “Chalk
Talk” ( instead of worksheets)
• Use picture cards and labels
• Use picture stories
• Information gap games
• Use visual prompts
Avoid distracting print on the board, plan
your board work.
#2 Start with Real Words
• Use activities like the Language
Experience Approach to start learning
Word Attack Skills
Teacher
Generated
Student
generated
Learn sight words using
student generated text
• Use Language Experience Approach
• Use CLL transcripts
• Focus on list of 100 common words
These activities:
eliminate comprehension difficulties
use only known vocabulary
ensure relevant content
are easy to make
are at the right level
#4 Create a System to Record and
Recycle new Sight Words
Target letter chart
Sight word wall
Recording, reviewing and
practicing sight words
• Create a system to record words for
individual learners (envelope,box,ring,list)
• Create a print-rich environment in the
classroom ( posters, labels, materials)
• Develop systems and routines to
practice and review sight words (
games, worksheets, regular review)
• Use teacher-made and simplified texts
to practice reading fluency
#5 Teach Word-attack Skills
As each sound is identified, put it into a word
and that word into a sentence that is
meaningful.
Other ideas:
• Make lists of words that contain that sound
• Introduce rhyming words ( hat, cat, sat)
• Play games such as bingo with sounds
• Use picture sorts
• Use sound discrimination exercises map/mat
cap/cat
Teach how to decode low(er)
frequency words
• Teach phonemic awareness (oral work)
• Target new sounds in vocabulary that is
known
• Teach letter/sound correspondence
»
»
»
»
Start with consonants and checked vowels
Create word families (at, cat, sat, mat)
Teach free vowels ( Tim/time)
Teach digraphs, diphthongs, etc
Free and checked vowels
• What does final ‘silent’ e do in the
following words?
Plate, scene, home, true.
• Why occurrence not occurence?
#6 Use a Combination of Topdown and Bottom-up Processing
Strategies in Every Lesson
Top-down processing:
Expose students to
whole sentences and
words in context.
Bottom-up processing :
Focus attention on
letters/sounds and how
sounds combine to
make words.
Pao is a
student.
He sits
next to
Van
S-SStudent.
What other
words start
with this
sound?
Top down/bottom up activities
Top down
(whole)
Bottom
up(parts)
Reading a
whole text to
develop
reading fluency
Focus on
sound/spelling,
word families
Recognize
word order and
use text
features
Sight words
Balance top-down and
bottom-up lesson focus
Car
Cup
clock
In each lesson unit give focus to:
 Oral work (include phonemic awareness) 
 Modeling reading
 Target letter(s) and sounds
 Sight words
• Reading strategies (predicting, using text
organization clues)
• Reading fluency ( Students practice reading texts at
the ‘right level’ = 96% of words are known)
Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic awareness is the ability to:
1.Recognize
(been, been, been, bin)
2.Distinguish
(red/led, rice/lice)
3.Manipulate sounds am, man, mom
Includes the ability to isolate, blend and
count sounds.
To develop reading
fluency:
• Students need access to materials
– Make class books
– Write your own texts
– Collect useful reading materials( e.g.
empty medicine and food containers)
– Organize/file your materials for easy
access
Provide a variety of ways to
practice reading
•
•
•
•
•
•
Vary how you practice:
Teacher led
Peer led
Pair reading
Shadow reading
Independent reading
#7 Help students See Patterns in
Language and Literacy
• Students need to see words in context.
Read this:
T e g rl w nt t t wn
When students learn chunks it helps them
predict the next word.
• Teach language patterns (grammar)
• Highlight important sound/spelling patterns
Teach patterns
For reading
• Practice on level appropriate materials
• Teach commonly occurring words in
word groups.
Instead of having students read
single words, have them ‘see’ the words
in context: “Abdi goes to work in the
morning.”
Sound/spelling patterns
• Teach free/checked vowel system
• Teach common letter combinations and
patterns ( -ing, ed, -gh, )
Letter C sound= /k/ or /s/ ?
When is it hard?
When is it soft?
Teach patterns
For syntax:
• Use visual drills
• Use grids and grid follow up activities
• Use rods to show sentence patterns
For sounds
• Rhyming words, word families
Grids
Grid Activity
• Introduce question form or sentence frame
• Model the grid
• Students complete grids in small groups or on
individual handouts
• Give additional oral practice of language as
necessary
• Students complete written work using grid
data as necessary
Grid follow up activities
• Match sight words to grid information
• Dictate sentences about the data. T writes
• Read a sentence about the grid
• Give sentence frames for completion
I like ______, Hawa likes______
Grid Follow Up Activities
• Students write their own sentences or Q and A using
grid data
• One group can write T/F statements about the grid
for another group to answer
• Groups answer questions, write additional questions
or summarize data
#8 Help students apply and notice
literacy in the world around them
Signs and notices
Documents
Real world Application
• Take walking tours
• Give extension assignments
• Copy down/take a picture of signs
• Find sight words in junk mail
• Practice filling out forms from mail
#9 Teach study skills and spend
time organizing paper work
• Color code important handouts you
want the students to retrieve quickly
• Students record name and date on each
handout
• Group handouts together, make small
“books” –all the handouts for “Going to
the doctor”
• Require students to have tools such as
a binder or folder
#10 Be intentional about planning
literacy instruction and capitalize
on ‘found’ literacy moments
Reading is a complex skill to master.
Native speakers have to practice and
study to become fluent readers and
writers.
English language learners are not doing
it in the language they know best.
Create literacy routines
Reduce planning time by creating routines that students
repeat in every lesson
•
Write date and name
•
•
•
•
Review of sight word cards ( individual)
Review ‘box of stuff”
Read “morning message”
Practice reading a whole text (LEA stories, transcripts, dialogues)
Teacher:
Model reading
Focus on a sound, letter or new sight words for each teaching cycle
“Found” moments
When students are focusing on oral work, there may be
small ‘teachable moments” when you can help
students notice something about literacy. Use the
print surrounding class discussions and oral work in a
mindful way.
Highlight ‘found’ moments
• Highlight target sounds in words
• Find sight words in written records of
oral work
• Apply “chunking” technique to reading
long words and sentences
• In a multi-level class, avoid having the
non-literate students copying from the
board in large amounts.
Multi-level classes
When literate students work semi-independently on a
writing task ( such as a dialogue journal or syntax
task in a pocket chart). Use this time to pull together
a group to work on literacy.
Non-literate students can:
• create an LEA story
• work on sight words
• notice a sound/spelling pattern
• practice forming or recognizing letters
• practice alphabetizing
Written Tasks
Written tasks ordered from easier to more difficult:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Match pictures and single words or sentences
Give sentence frames or blank-fills
Give complete text out of order
Give text with some mistakes for correction
Complete a cloze text
Controlled writing activities (Transfer tense, pluralize- only one
answer)
• Reconstruct a text (Dictogloss)
• Guided writing activities (first/last line given, answer Q’s to form
paragraph, etc)
• Free write
A Few Tips
Materials
 Use a larger font.
 Use a font that reflects how we write, for
example, Century Gothic and Comic Sans.
 Have plenty of white space on the sheet.
 Use visuals, graphics, and icons to
accompany written material.
 How can you explain, model or respond
without writing?
A Few Tips
Classroom
Provide a print rich environment. Label
parts of the classroom and furniture;
write common sight words on charts.
Build literacy routines into classroom
management. Have students sign-in;
get students to write the date on the
board. Build a community of learners.
A Few Tips
Classroom
Communicate with students in writing.
Write a daily message and read it at the
beginning of class.
Good Morning. Today we are going to write
letter M. Today we are going to learn about
food.
A Few Tips
Classroom
Write a page reference on the board as
well as telling students orally. Page 47
 Review continually. Recycle known sight
words in new contexts. Create games and
activities to review.
A Few Tips
Strategies
 Give hints and clues rather than the
answer every time.
When a student is trying to read,
give the beginning sound as a clue to a
word you think they know
A Few Tips
Strategies
When reading longer words, like ‘today’,
cover half the word. Have students
sound out the part they know and
encourage them to guess from context.
Cover up words to make them shorter,
so they can read a piece at a time,
Car-pen-ter
Reflection and Application
• What is a tip , strategy, activity or tool
that you are taking away today?
Resources
•
•
•
•
See the bibliography in your handout
Add resources
Share with others
Start a peer mentoring group in your
area