Judith Kirsh (NATECLA Co-Chair) talks about helping learners who have trouble reading and writing

1. Judith Kirsh
ESOL teacher-educator and SfL consultant
judykirsh@aol.com
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2. What are the challenges of teaching
ESOL learners who have no, or very
little, literacy in any language?
 Where do you start?

Briefly discuss these questions with the
person(s) sitting next to you.
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3. A ‘basic literacy’ learner is … someone who
has not yet reached Entry 1 Reading and
Writing, and
 is learning the sub-skills or mechanics of
reading and writing
 struggles to read and write a small number
of key words, a very simple sentence and
very simple text independently
Adult ESOL Core Curriculum
http://www.excellencegateway.org.uk/sflcurriculum
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4. The greep dawked forily prip the
blortican. It snaughted preg the
melidock trippicant ……… shrolled
nong the cretidges. Pronubcaily, …….
greep caught up with all the other
dogs. They ……. found a fresh
murchil burrow and were sprool…….
and muting round it.
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5. The greep dawked forily prip the
blortican. It snaughted preg the
melidock trippicant and shrolled nong
the cretidges. Pronubcaily, the greep
caught up with all the other dogs. They
had found a fresh murchil burrow and
were sprooling and muting round it.
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6.  Schema
activation
 Clues of meaning and context cues
(semantic)
 Clues of word order and grammar
(syntactic)
 Visual recognition – recognising letter
patterns such as -ight (graphic)
 Phonemic awareness and phonics –
sounding out letters
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7. Based on this theory, there are three stages in
the acquisition of literacy:
 Logographic: based on crude, visual shapes
and features
 Alphabetic: based on phoneme and grapheme
awareness
 Orthographic: based on visual analysis (whole
word grapheme sequences)
– independent of sound
– use of internal semantic lexicon
(Frith, U. 1985; 1986)
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8.  Phonemic
awareness
 Word analysis (phonics, decoding & sight words)
 Fluency (repeated oral reading, guided reading, peer
reading)
 Vocabulary (in context, repeated
exposure, listening, reading, multiple authentic
contexts)
 Comprehension (specific strategies, e.g question
asking, question answering, summary writing, use of
graphic and semantic organisers, comprehension
monitoring, use of story structure, and cooperative
learning)
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9.  Watch
this video extract - what are the
stages the teacher works through?
 What does the process involve?
 What is the aim of language experience
work?
 What materials does the teacher use?
 How could you use this approach in your
teaching?
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10. Text Level
Language experience
Simple texts
Writing name and
address
Sentence/Word
Level
Handwriting Phonics
Spelling
Punctuation
Sentence structure
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11. 




Teaching Basic Literacy to ESOL Learners video (1)
(2001) LLU+ London South Bank University. Language
experience video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=griOr9gDrY&feature=youtu.be
Spiegel, M. & Sunderland, H. (2006) A Teacher’s Guide:
Teaching Basic Literacy to ESOL Learners, LLU+ London
South Bank University
Frith, U. (1985). Beneath the surface of developmental
dyslexia. In K. E. Patterson, J. C. Marshall & M. Coltheart
(Eds.), (pp. 301-330). London: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Frith, U. (1986). A developmental framework for
developmental dyslexia. Annals of Dyslexia, 36, 69-81.
Adult ESOL Core Curriculum
http://www.excellencegateway.org.uk/sflcurriculum
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12. McShane, Susan (2005) Applying Research in Reading
Instruction for Adults: First Steps for Teachers
http://lincs.ed.gov/publications/pdf/applyingresearch.pdf
 Adult Education Literacy Instruction: A Review of the Research
(2010)
http://lincs.ed.gov/publications/pdf/adult_ed_2010.pdf
 The Language Experience
http://www.amity.org.uk/Training/Language%20Experience/La
nguage%20Experience.htm

(Alhough this guidance focuses on using language experience
with children it does have clear instructions and a range of
developmental ideas that could be adapted for adults).
In Their Own Words - The Language Experience Approach: A
Method
http://www.literacyconnections.com/InTheirOwnWords.php

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