Day 5 - Let's Talk Phonics

Hello to All Participants in our Let's Talk Phonics event,

We would like to recognize your outstanding participation in this discussion by offering you a Certificate of Completion for six hours of training in Phonics Instruction to Adult Learners. This  recognition will be signed by Kathy St. John and the three LINCS community moderators participating in our dialogues. If you are interested, we ask that you meet the following stipulations by the end of the week, or Sunday:

1. Provide evidence in your forum comments that you have viewed all six videos in the series being discussed.
2. Participate thoughtfully on the topics/questions posed for each of the six days of the event. You may do this retroactively since the daily discussions remain open and always invite further comment. 
3. Post a final entry addressing the following two items: (1) what I've learned and (2) how I will apply it to my practice post. A separate discussion will be open for you to enter your responses at the end of the week.

If you are interested in receiving a certificate for your involvement in this event, please email Kathy Tracey at Kathy.tracey1997@gmail.com. 

Sincerely, 

The Let's Talk Phonics Event Team. 

What challenges do you most often face among tutors starting to work with beginning adult readers? 

What challenges do you think developing adult readers most often face?

I think tutors starting to work with beginning adult readers and developing adult readers face the same three big challenges: fear, anxiety and a lack of self confidence. 

Tutors who are new to tutoring reading and helping beginning adult readers improve their reading skills often tell me how unsure they feel about being qualified and able to tutor in this area. Most aren't professional teachers and have never tutored before. Most are excellent readers who have never struggled with reading and often don't even remember learning to read because it was so easy for them. They can't imagine what it's like not to be able to read. While they join programs so they can share the joy of reading with those who lack reading skills, they often have no idea of where to begin and can't even imagine how a tutor might go about teaching an adult to improve his or her reading skills. They fear they might do something terribly wrong that might negatively affect a learner. They lack the confidence to believe that they can gain the skills required to equip themselves to become competent and successful tutors. Their lack of experience and knowledge in this area can make even the most enthusiastic tutors shiver in their boots.

I've facilitated tutor trainings and reading workshops for several programs that have used the videos to help allay tutors' fears and to demonstrate what it looks like when a tutor helps a leaner work with a learner on activities designed to improve his/her reading skills. Prospective tutors attending pre-service workshops have told me that watching the videos as a homework assignment between the orientation to the program and the first day of training has really boosted their confidence and decreased their anxiety and fear that they won't be able to do this kind of volunteer work. Once they've seen the rapport a learner and tutor can enjoy and specific strategies being demonstrated by real life tutors and learners they can take a deep breath and focus on learning the fundamentals of how to teach reading. They tell me that seeing the reading strategies in action is far more helpful to them than reading about them in a training manual or listening to them being described by a tutor trainer. They say it's especially helpful to see the strategies demonstrated in the videos and then to try them out immediately in a practice activity during the training.

More seasoned tutors participating in my reading workshops share the same feedback. Even though they've been tutors for quite awhile, many tutors feel unsure of how to teach the basics and mechanics of reading to beginning adult readers, using strategies such as the phonics approaches we've seen in the videos. They say the videos allow them to better understand what is expected of them when they work with emerging readers and this gives them the confidence they need to succeed.

Many developing adult readers have had negative experiences when they were learning to read as children. The prospect of trying to learn to read or improve their reading as adults can be really scary for these learners. Memories of shame, embarrassment, and an inability to perform tasks that were easy for others all contribute to the fear and anxiety that cause many learners to lack confidence that they can learn to read or improve their reading as adults because they can learn the way they learn best, rather than the way their school teacher wanted them to learn. Most adult learners have never experienced learner-centered learning and teaching that focuses on their strengths and abilities and relevant life experiences. They've never had their learning styles and preferences taken into account and catered to. They don't realize that learning can be a fun, positive experience with the right teacher or tutor, appropriate materials and effective instructional strategies targeted to their particular assessed needs. Overcoming all of this history is enormously challenging for most learners. 

English language learners may experience these same issues or they may have had positive learning experiences in their own countries. But many often also experience fear, anxiety and a lack of confidence as they enter into a learning venture that takes them out of their comfort zone and asks them to learn something so new and different, often while they're also struggling with the demands of their work, family and friends and personal lives. Learning to read in English brings with it fear, anxiety and a lack of confidence in different degrees depending on the educational level of the learner, their facility with languages, the time they have to devote to learning English, etc. But I've never seen a learner of any background walk into a situation in which they're going to work on lessons focusing on developing basic reading skills who didn't experience some level of fear, anxiety and a lack of confidence. Some programs have told me that they've used the videos to show their learners what a tutoring session in reading looks like to bolster the learners' confidence that they can succeed in this kind of learning and to help lessen their anxiety and fear around learning to read or improving their reading skills.

New beginners can also use this approach.  I create small stories for my students every month.  We do not have a curriculum for our students. As a supplement to the CVC words we are learning, I create a monthly story.  The word families we have practiced are recycled into the story to build confidence and to bring the word out of isolation and put it into context format. 

In thinking about how to bring a phonics-in-context approach into my stories, I could input slightly challenging words to provide the bridge from sounds and blends they know to the practice of utilizing the approaches learn to determine how to read the word.  They could use context clues to think whether the word they read makes sense. 

I see the phonics-in-context approach as a valuable workplace advantage.  If the students are presented with new information at work or even from your child's school this skill will allow them to engage with the print and determine the message being shared.

My biggest challenge would be time to be creative as I make the stories.  Sometimes I work from content the Oral teacher taught the month before. We are able to reuse, recycle and reinforce previously instructed vocabulary.  The question I will ask myself most often is, “How can I increase this just a little to help my students practice the art of solving the question of "How do I say this?"”