This document discusses challenges in teaching literacy to adult learners with very low literacy skills. It provides several examples of literacy activities that did not work well with this population and analyzes why. Key reasons for lack of success included learners having no foundational skills like print awareness, letter knowledge, or phonological awareness. The document emphasizes that this population needs instruction to start at a very basic level by first building important prerequisites through multi-sensory activities before being able to engage with more advanced literacy tasks. A task analysis approach is recommended to identify specific skill gaps for each learner.

1. Lowest Literacy Learners:
What Doesn't Work and Why
Jean Marrapodi  jmarrapodi@applestar.org  @jmarrapodi 401-440-61615

2. How is Reading Taught?
Theories and Methodology

3. Brainstorm
Work with a
neighbor to list all
of the necessary
skills for reading

5. During Reading
“Every moment of reading involves interpreting print
through neural networks that assign sounds to the
letters and bring meaning from the lexicon, the
language dictionary that develops in the brain
through life. When a word does not make sense, the
reader sounds it out in an effort to connect it to the
lexicon and may bring an alternative interpretations
to make sense of the message. An expert reader
does this within milliseconds without being conscious
of the process.”
Abadzi, H. (2009). Improving Adult Literacy Outcomes, p 22

6. Phonics
Methods of
Teaching Reading

7. Sight Words
Methods of
Teaching Reading

8. Language Experience
Methods of Teaching Reading

9. Methods of Teaching Reading
Whole Language

10. Reading Today: Four Areas
Alphabetics Comprehension
Vocabulary Fluency

11. Label Your List
Alphabetics Comprehension
A C
Vocabulary Fluency
V F

12. Scarborough, H. 2001. Connecting early language and literacy to later reading (dis)abilities: Evidence, theory, and practice. Pp. 97-110 in
S. B. Neuman & D. K. Dickinson (Eds.) Handbook of Early Literacy. NY: Guilford Press.

13. http://www.sedl.org/reading/framework/

14. What DOESN’T Work
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again, & again & again.

15. Context
 Faith-based setting
 Adult Sunday School Class
 Liberian refugees
 Senior citizens, age unknown (not tracked in
Liberia)
 Meet 1 hour/week for past 6 years

16. Preamble: Spring 2006
 Lesson One: Palm Sunday
 Story told with help of an interpreter
 Draw a picture to illustrate the story
 Could not do.
 Through a translator: “We can’t do that. We haven’t
practiced like you have to be able to do that.”

17. Preamble Two
 Lesson Two: Easter
 Ok, let’s copy some drawings to tell the story.
 We can’t do that.

18. Preamble Three
 Let’s try to copy some
symbols then.
 Could not complete
unless dots were drawn
to connect the lines.
 Circles were misshapen
and barely recognizable.

19. Why Didn’t That Work?
 Never touched pencil, paper or book
 No experience drawing
 Did not know what markers did
 No concept of symbols representing things
Better Approach
 Demonstrate writing tools
 Allow to experiment with drawing materials

20. From the research
“The learner who knows how to learn comes to class with
tools for tackling the different process of mastering
learning to read in a new language. The learner who does
not have some educational experience usually has less
information upon which to draw in coping with concepts
as well as fewer techniques with which to tackle the job.”
(Brod, 1999, p5)

21. Adult Non-literates Have Not
Developed Most School Skills
• Awareness of individual sounds in words; a sense of
language associated with print
• Visual processing and discrimination skills (e.g.
seeing what is important in pictures, seeing
differences in letters and words)
• Fine motor skills for holding writing utensils, writing
on lines, in boxes
• Thinking and processing skills which are learned in
school
(Lovrien Schwarz, 2012)

22. Some Differences
Literate Learners Non-literate Learners
Learn from print Learn by doing and watching
Tend to be visually oriented Tend to be aurally oriented
Make lists to remember Repeat to remember
Spend years learning to read Have limited time for
learning to read
Know they can learn Lack confidence in their
learning ability
Can distinguish between May accept all content as
important and less important being of equal value
points
Brod, 1999, p6

23. Even their brains are different
• “…Schooling and in particular the knowledge of
orthography introduces in the brain new strategies
for information processing…” (Castro-Caldas & Reis,
2003)
• “…Learning to read and write during childhood
influences the functional organization of the adult
human brain.” (Castro-Caldas, Petersson, Reis, Stone-Elander &
Ingvar,1998)
• “…Brains of illiterate subjects show patterns of
activation that are different from those of literate
subjects, thus reflecting that environmental
conditions can influence brain organization.”
(Ostroski-Solis, Garcia & Perez, 2004)

24. Some Similarities
Literate learners Non-literate learners
•Have varying needs and goals
•Learn best when content is relevant to their lives
•Come with life experiences and skills that can be leveraged
•Want to succeed

25. Sight Word Approach
Elizabeth loves Jesus
Switched cards:
Jesus loves Elizabeth
Said: Elizabeth loves Jesus.

26. Why Didn’t That Work?
 No print awareness
 No idea that language is made of words
 No connection between word and concept
 Too much, too fast
Better Approach
 Need foundation of symbolism
 Introduce idea of words as print

27. Language Experience

30. Why This Worked
 Began with the familiar
 Used photographs
 Repetitive patterns
Some Issues
 Reading pictures, not words
 Memorized patterns, leveraged storytelling skills

31. Working
With
Words

32. Why Didn’t That Work?
 Words were not by the picture
 Did not make sense they were out of order
 Didn’t understand concept of drawing the line to
the word
Better Approach
 Practice matching cards to pictures
 Explicit explanation of the concept in a group
 Draw lines after concept of matching words to
pictures is wholly understood

33. Limited Memory Resources
“People’s level of education influences their ability to
solve abstract problems, use readily presented data in
decisions, recognize and name pictures of objects and
understand radio broadcasts. Most important, the
unschooled perform less well in most memory tasks:
recalling a series of digits backward and forward,
remembering lists of words, reproducing a short
story, reproducing complex figures that were
presented, recalling common objects, remembering
sequences. The limited memory and cognitive
resources probably also reduce performance in
literacy classes.”
Abadzi, H. (2003).
Adult Literacy Outcomes, p 2

34. Learn the Alphabet

36. Find the A’s

37. Find

38. Impossible!

39. Not seeing letters, but shapes
Frances turned the word vertically to copy the shapes of the letters.

40. Elizabeth did the same thing

41. Why Didn’t That Work?
 Letters were things – new words to learn
 Capital or lower case, no connections
 No ideal of what a letter was
 Unable to discriminate between letters
Better Approach
 Need foundation of symbolism
 Need to learn phonological concepts – words, sounds
 Introduce idea of words made of letters
 Talk about how letters look
 Learn to listen for sounds slowly

42. From the research
•Young-Scholten and Strom found that while all of their
study participants “demonstrated solid knowledge of the
alphabet in their ability to read letters in different fonts
and out of order . . . many demonstrated no phonemic
awareness and no decoding ability” (p. 63).
•Such findings indicate that knowledge of the
alphabet alone does not lead to phonological
awareness and the ability to decode words.
(Vinegrov and Bigelow, 2010)

43. Key Words

44. Match letter to picture
Not successful
Used puzzle shape
clues, not letters.

45. Why Didn’t That Work?
 No phonemic awareness
 Unable to differentiate all sounds
 Pictures did not connect with real things
 No phonemic manipulation skills
Better Approach
 Learn to listen for sounds
 Need foundation of symbolism
 Introduce idea of words made of letters
 Work with photographs
 Build visual literacy

46. From the research
•Adults with limited literacy are generally lacking some
critical skills, such as sound-symbol association and
decoding skills (Gombert, 1994; Kurvers & van de
Craats, 2007; Young-Scholten & Strom, 2006).
•“Children learning in their first language have a natural
facility for distinguishing and reproducing language
sounds (Minnesota Literacy Council, 1994). They can
work easily with the sounds they hear. Adults learning
in a second language have limited abilities; they are
conditioned to hear only the sounds that occur in their
native languages and have less facility in reproducing
unfamiliar sounds.” (Brod, 1999)

47. Learners Have Limited Visual Literacy
Silver (1999) points out that learners from
pre-literate societies may also have
problems in “seeing” the third dimension in
pictures: a simple line drawing of a
chair on the chalkboard may not convey the
concept of “chair” to someone without
experience with print media.

48. What does this mean?
a) Headache
b) Fever
c) Worried
d) Sleep
e) Busy

49. What does this mean?
a) Headache
b) Fever
c) Worried
d) Sleep
e) Busy
These were actual answers from learners describing the picture

50. Actual Answers
a) Talking
b) Screaming
c) Woman’s brain
d) Something about to
hit the woman’s head
e) Rain is coming

51. Actual Answers
a) Basketball
b) Basketball backboard and
court
c) Computer monitor
d) Tire
e) Book and stereo speaker

52. Actual Answers
a) Clock
b) Arrow counts minutes
c) Arrow shows direction of
movement
d) Guidance for the short hand
e) Shadow cast by hand

53. Actual Answers
a) Family
b) Teacher and students
c) Watching something
d) Screaming
e) Taking a picture

54. Students
must have
mental
models of
the concept

55. Teach them to read pictures
Students did not know this was autumn.

56. Four Stages of Reading Development
Students begin to make correlations
Emergent among oral, written, and printed
stimuli
Beginning to read, uses problem
Early solving to collect clues about meaning
of new words
Make sense of longer, more complex
Transitional texts; employs strategies to support
meaning
Reads independently for extended
Fluent periods; relies on text more than
illustrations
Ellery, V. (2009). Creating Strategic Readers, Newark, DE: International Reading Association. P.34.

57. LESLLA
STUDENTS Pre-emergent!
Students begin to make correlations
Emergent among oral, written, and printed
stimuli
Beginning to read, uses problem
Early solving to collect clues about meaning
of new words
Make sense of longer, more complex
Transitional texts; employs strategies to support
meaning
Reads independently for extended
Fluent periods; relies on text more than
illustrations
Ellery, V. (2009). Creating Strategic Readers, Newark, DE: International Reading Association. P.34.

59. Available in Ellery, V. (2009). Creating Strategic Readers

60. 6 Essential Pre-Reading Skills
 Narrative Skills
 Print Motivation
 Vocabulary
 Print Awareness
 Letter Knowledge
 Phonological
Awareness
From Every Child Ready to Read a joint project of the Public Library
Association and the Association for Library Service to Children.

61. 6 Essential Pre-Reading Skills
Narrative Skills
Being able to describe
things and events and
tell stories.
How can we
encourage this
in our learners?
Image by Eric Westbrook
http://www.ericwestbrook.com/p590.html

62. 6 Essential Pre-Reading Skills
Print Motivation
Being interested in and
enjoying books.
How can we
encourage this
in our learners?

63. 6 Essential Pre-Reading Skills
Vocabulary
Knowing the
name of things.
How can we
encourage this
in our learners?

64. 6 Essential Pre-Reading Skills
Print
Awareness
Noticing print,
knowing how to
handle books &
how to follow
words on a page.
How can we encourage this in our learners?

65. 6 Essential Pre-Reading Skills
Letter Knowledge
Knowing letters are
different from each
other, knowing their
names and sounds
and recognizing
letters everywhere.
How can we
encourage this
in our learners?

66. 6 Essential Pre-Reading Skills
Phonological
Awareness
Being able to hear and
play with the smaller
sounds in words.
Wait!
What’s the difference
between phonological
awareness, phonemic
awareness, and phonics?

67. Being phonologically aware means
knowing ways in which oral
language is divided into smaller
components and is manipulated.
(Chard & Dickson, 1999)
• This is a sentence.
• It is made up of words.
• Words are made of syl la bles.
• Syllables are made of /s/ /n/d/z/

68. http://www.readingfirst.virginia.edu/prof_dev/phonemic_awareness/images/pyramid_low.gif

69. Vocabulary: Phonological Awareness
Ellery, V. (2009). Creating Strategic Readers, Newark, DE: International Reading Association. P.34.

70. Helping Things Work
Begin at the beginning

71. Adult Learners are Swiss Cheese
We need
to teach to
the holes

72. Task Analysis
 Process of identifying elements required to
complete a task
 Step by step procedure or list of knowledge and
skills
 Used in special education and training programs
Compare with learner
abilities. This
identifies the holes.
Teach to the holes!!

73. Picture Recognition
Task Analysis  Identify pictures
 Know what items in pictures
are [mental model]
(elephant!?!)
 Know English word for item
Sound Recognition
 Hear differences between
sounds
 Isolate initial phoneme
Word Recognition
Letter Recognition  Connect word to picture
 Visually differentiate letters
 Identify letters Association
 Recognize capital and lower  Connect letter, sound,
case letters and picture for six items

74. What skills are needed to play?
Card game
Find the detail
in the picture

75. What works?
 Whole-Part-Whole Vowels
 Connect to real life Concept
But FIRST Vocabulary
1. Do a deep task analysis
2. Ensure the foundation is in place……
3. Or it all just rolls away.

76. Connect with me!
Jean Marrapodi
jmarrapodi@applestar.org
@jmarrapodi
401-440-616 5