[Assessment 1423] Thurs/Fri Discussion on Working with Youth

Dear Colleagues,



Subscriber Stephanie Korber has agreed to be available this Thursday and
Friday to share more about the work that her programs does with Young
Adults/Youth.  Stephanie's original post from last Monday and the email she
sent out shortly thereafter with a list of resources that are regularly used
with this population are pasted below for your convenience.



Please join us Thursday and Friday (September 18 and 19) to learn more about
the Center for Literacy, Inc., their Youth Education services, and
activities they use for diagnostic purposes.



Please also share your own work with Young Adults – this important realm of
adult education is growing and I understand that more and more programs are
adding components to work specifically with this population.



I can produce a transcript of the discussion and a comprehensive list of any
resources shared that can then be accessed by subscribers (and others
interested in working with youth and literacy).



Thanks – and looking forward to our discussion,



Marie



Marie Cora

Assessment Discussion List Moderator



*********************************************************************



Good Morning!  We run multiple similar programs for the same age group with
the same literacy levels here in Philadelphia.  We find that assessment of
reading skills below a sixth grade level is extremely important in order to
provide instruction based on the needs of the individual, as some will need
intensive instruction in the foundational reading skills that might not be
accurately assessed using the TABE (though we use the TABE for placement and
grade level gain increase).  For diagnostic purposes we use the Woodcock
Johnson Diagnostic Reading Battery.  It is a time intensive test (one-on-one
administration taking just under 2 hours per student) and you must have the
appropriate qualifications to order and administer it, but we've found that
it provides our instructors with invaluable information about the specific
needs of each learner including their silent reading comprehension vs. oral
reading comprehension, ability to decode, rate of fluency, reading
vocabulary vs. oral vocabulary, etc.  It takes about the same time to
administer as a qualitative reading inventory (QRI).



Our teachers use a broad range of materials and strategies for instruction.
In all fairness, I must tell you that we hire certified reading specialists
to work with this population.  They have been trained to address the needs
of this target population so they come with a repertoire of strategies and
ideas for materials.  I can send you a list of things we commonly use if
you'll send me your email address.  They include the Bluford series of young
adult fiction (low readability, high interest), Wild Side Series, News for
You (New Readers Press), and more.  Also, I teach an online course through
ProLiteracy Worldwide that addressing strategies and materials for young
adults.  The next offering will be in October, if you are interested.



Best,

Stephanie



Stephanie Korber

Director of Youth Education

Center for Literacy, Inc.

636 S. 48th Street

Philadelphia, PA 19143

215 474 1235 ext. 270 & 219

korber at centerforliteracy.org



*********************************************************************



E3 Center Activities/Teaching Strategies/Programs

**

*Playing with sounds (phonemic awareness)/Decoding/Word recognition:*



AbeCeDarien: www.abcdrp.com

Strong Learning Centers Phonics card games www.stronglearning.com or
1-888-3-STRONG

LindaMood-Bell: http://www.lindamoodbell.com/

REWARDS program: available through Sopris West at http://www.sopriswest.com/

Echo/Choral reading

Ability to delete, substitute, blend and identify sounds/syllables in
isolation

Word building through phonics tiles/reading rods/phonics blocks (including
non-real words)

Word sorting by phoneme (i.e. words with long e sound ee, ea, e consonant e)

Spelling patterns (*Month by Month Phonics for Upper Grades* by P.
Cunningham and D. Hall)

Direct instruction in syllabication

Direct instruction on prefixes, suffixes and roots (including chunking
unfamiliar words)

Context clues



*Fluency building:*



Quick Reads: http://www.quickreads.org/<http://mail.centerforliteracy.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.quickreads.org/>

Reading with expression

Dictation exercises

Sight word practice

Regular tapings of reading with immediate feedback

Charting reading progress through timed reading activities calculating words
per minute

Echo/Choral reading

Independent reading

* *

*Vocabulary building:*

* *

Vocabulary comics, personal dictionary

Cloze activities

Pre-reading vocabulary discussion

Prefixes, suffixes

Latin or Greek root

Synonyms, antonyms, homonyms

Dictionary practice, expressing definition in own words, and practice using
word

Prosody



*Comprehension:*



Activating prior knowledge, predicting, questioning, connecting to text,
summarizing,

identifying main idea and details, understanding author's purpose, point of
view, fact or opinion

Tellbacks (verbal, written, oral)

Modeling Think Alouds/Developing self-monitoring skills

Graphic Organizers

Visualizing/Guided Imagery

Text rendering

Skimming

Think-Pair-Share

Character Analysis

Higher level thinking (evaluative, inferences, making connections to own
life, etc)



*Writing/Spelling:*



Target Spelling by Steck Vaughn: http://steckvaughn.harcourtachieve.com/

AVKO Sequential Spelling: www.avko.org

Fast write

Regular journal (including dialogue journal with peers or instructor)



*Use of technology:*

* *

Typing practice (free programs found online, including
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/)

TV 411: www.TV411.org <http://www.tv411.org/>

Publisher

HeadSprout: www.headsprout.com

Earobics: www.earobics.com



*Additional materials used: *

* *

*Bluford Series* by Townsend Press

*News for You*, published weekly by New Readers Press

*True Stories* by Sandra Heyer

*Critical **Reading** Series* by Jamestown Publishers

*Words Their Way* by Merrill/Prentice Hall

http://www.literacyconnections.com/WordsTheirWay.php<http://mail.centerforliteracy.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.literacyconnections.com/WordsTheirWay.php>.


*Reading Reflex* by Carmen and Geoffrey McGuinness (AbeCeDarien is extension
of approach)

*A Non-Textbook, Non-workbook Approach to Teaching Language Arts (Grades
4-8)* by James T.
Charnock<http://www.amazon.com/s/105-3329271-7356462?ie=UTF8&index=books&rank=-relevance%2C%2Bavailability%2C-daterank&field-author-exact=Charnock%2C%20James%20T.>

Real life materials (menus, catalogs, newspapers, etc)

Scrabble

Movies: Educating Rita, Stand and Deliver, Dangerous Minds, The Ron Clark
Story, Follow My Leader, Coach Carter, Take the Lead, Lean on Me, Mr.
Holland's Opus, To Sir With Love, Dead Poet's Society, The Emperor's Club

* *

*Themes observed:*



Encouraging active readers

Self-monitoring/self evaluation

Inquiry!!

Reinforcing and building on skills students already possess

Transferring fluency skills (intonation, flow, use of punctuation, pace,
etc.) to internal voice for silent reading

Honoring learning styles through multi-sensory approach

Test-taking skills

Writing opportunities

Thinking beyond the GED
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lincs.ed.gov/pipermail/assessment/attachments/20080916/d57b0c63/attachment.html