Training for the enhancement of online educational resources submitted by the National Adult Literacy Database
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If you browse the NALD Literacy Collection (www.nald.ca/CLR/search/), you will notice that some listings have this logo. This means that the document has been evaluated by literacy coordinators and instructors of the Community Academic Services Program (CASP) in New Brunswick and is recommended for adult learning. Each document has received a star rating, with 5 stars being the highest.
By clicking on “see practitioner evaluation,” you will be taken to a page of information about the document. This information was provided by the evaluators, and includes details about the subject area, who it is intended for, what format it is in, and how appealing it is likely to be to students.
For example, “A Caring Life – Our Lives” is a 19-page booklet containing “[g]reat little short stories from Newfoundland with non-intrusive illustrations.” It received the full five stars and is at a basic curriculum level. There is no audio, but it is visually appealing, well organized, engaging, and fun, in clear/plain language and an easy-to-read font. All of this information and more is available from the evaluation.
The purpose of this National Literacy Secretariat funded project was to make it easier for CASP instructors to find appropriate learning materials to use with their learners. This is accomplished by having all the evaluated materials accessible through one central location: www.nald.ca/EvalToolNALDResources/search/eval_list.asp.
Since these resources are evaluated, centralized, and free of charge, this will also be helpful to other adult literacy learners and tutors looking for classroom materials.
Another objective of the project was to help CASP instructors increase their skills in using the Internet, through learning to search for online educational resources. They were also given the opportunity to work with and learn from each other, which helps to ensure that knowledge is shared and passed down to new CASP instructors, whether about individual resources or about the Internet in general. The Community Academic Services Program is a free community-based literacy program for adults, customized to meet the needs of the individual learner. For more information about CASP in New Brunswick, please see www.anbi-lnbi.nb.ca/English/WhatWeDo.htm#CBL
Teaching reading to adults: what does the research say? by Pat Campbell
Let’s consider the teaching of reading from a historical perspective. Do you think that educators’ tend to move “from one extreme to another? Why is there a tendency to resist occupying the space between two positions? What would this space look like? What would it feel like?
The ongoing debate between whole language vs. phonics serves as a common example of two extreme positions pertaining to methodology. Yet, in the field of adult literacy, the term “balance” operates not only in the context of methodology, but also within the broader context of reading the word and the world. The following outlines some aspects of balance within an adult basic education program:
Assessment and Instruction uses a spiral approach, incorporates the need for responsive instruction, attends to construction of knowledge, meaning, and word identification and provides leadership while leaving room for students to lead. Reading the Word and the World promotes the development of community by integrating literacy education with social (inter) action, provides the opportunities for students to read and learn specific strategies that will assist them to become better readers while recognizing that literacy is a socioeconomic and political issue and challenges hierarchical social relations both inside and outside the classroom.
| “The
ongoing debate between whole language vs. phonics serves as a common
example of two extreme positions pertaining to methodology.“ Pat Campbell |
Let’s focus our gaze on the notion of a spiral approach, which is one aspect of a balanced program that is supported by research. A recent study examined the word identification and comprehension strategies of 344 adult basic education students enrolled in 34 programs in community colleges and school boards and 24 community-based programs in Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and the Northwest Territories (Campbell & Malicky, 2002). The adults ranged in reading levels from those at the beginning level to those who were able to read high school material with adequate comprehension.
The research findings indicated few differences in reading strategies used by adults across different levels of reading proficiency. In terms of reading comprehension, this means that adults across all levels (basic, intermediate, and senior upgrading classes) can analyze, summarize, and synthesize text information and make inferences. In terms of decoding skills, the findings indicated that adults across all levels relied primarily upon either meaning cues or an integrated use of meaning and print cues as they read. The findings also indicated that within levels, there are significant differences in reading strategies among adults. For example, while some students relied on meaning cues to decode words, others used a combination of meaning and print cues.