All Info About Reading

If you work with adults or any sort of one-on-one tutoring program, you’ll want to check out this resource: the Litstart book from Michigan Literacy.  This is the book that our county has chosen to use as a tutoring handbook for our fledgling tutoring program, because it is so well done.  You’ll find dozens of practical strategies and suggestions for working with adult learners who are struggling with reading or writing.  There’s also a comprehensive section on working with ESL students. 

If your materials are in short supply, I highly recommend this book-there are lots of activity ideas that can be implemented using materials that are on hand or readily available at the library, such as newspapers or magazines.  You can get all of the practical tips you need to start working with an adult student, even if you’ve never tutored before. 

Please visit Michigan Literacy for more information.

Pretend with me for a moment that you cannot read.  It’s hard to even imagine that, isn’t it?  We take literacy skills for granted, and we read without even thinking about the process. 

Try this:  

Th!s si hmat !llitarecy zeews liek ot wauy.  Teh lattens hcenge anb swithc anonub unitl ti si iwbossidle to becobe anything.

That ugly mess actually says “This is what illiteracy seems like to many.  The letters change and switch around until it is impossible to decode anything.”  All I did was rearrange a few letters and substitute some commonly-confused letters, like w for m and u for n.  It was very uncomfortable, wasn’t it? 

If you could not read, that sentence above would seem normal to you.  Print would, for the most part, be meaningless.  Your opportunities and education would be extremely limited, and you would have trouble accomplishing even the most basic tasks in adult life, like reading recipes or assembling budget furniture.  Protecting yourself by reading loan documents or taking care of your own taxes would be out of the question.  Employment doors would be slammed in your face as soon as the personnel department realized that you couldn’t read. 

Statistics show that in the United States, between ten and fifteen percent of all adults are in this situation.  Many more can read somewhat, but are not efficient at the task.  HELP IS NEEDED!  Please consider donating time, energy, and/or money to your local literacy agency.  Share your good fortune with others, and don’t take reading for granted!

If you are a parent or a teacher, take a moment this week to make sure your children or students are reading as well as they should be.  It’s simple: just listen to them read aloud from a grade-level text.  They should make no more than five errors per page.  If you notice a problem, get help!  Don’t assume it will go away on its own or be outgrown.  It’s very important to seek help early for reading problems.

Check out these helpful articles here at AIA Reading:

Five-Finger Method

The Importance of Fluency

Correction and Oral Reading

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© 2008 Sandra Fleming