ThatReadingThing

What an hour! There was so much right and so much wrong that it’s hard to know where to start.

Here’s what was right:

• Phil himself as the choice of a teacher who is is compassionate and daring. He was also honest about his own lack of experience with adults and the difficulties of teaching a class of adults with a wide range of abilities and struggles.

• The public denouncement of the “Skills for Life” curriculum. I know it was clever editing but the Skills for Life instructor’s last words were, “They pass their exams; that is what it’s all about”. Beautiful: apt and self-condemning. If the adult education system knew anything at all about older struggling readers, they would know that learning to read is about so so so much more than passing exams. (later edit: I don’t like SfL but I would never condemn the amazing teachers out there in Adult Ed - just in case anyone thought I was having a go at the people who serve daily in the trenches!)

• An accurate portrayal of what it means when an adult says “I can’t read”. The range of reading ages and the variety of barriers to learning were realistic and moving.

• The passion and emotion. A lack of reading ability isn’t just a clinical issue. It’s not about statistics and exams and certificates and government funding. It’s about humiliation and pride, fear and hope, frustration and joy.

• Phonics. To quote Teresa, “Those sounds have given me life”. Phil was so right to question why the Skills for Life framework doesn’t include comprehensive decoding before anything else. What we didn’t learn is that SfL sees learning the sounds of letters as too patronising for adults. I think we should pay Theresa as an adult literacy consultant and have her repeat that sentence until someone listens. “Those sounds have given me life.”

So what was wrong?

• “I’m using a method for children because there’s nothing out there like this for adults.” Um, Phil, you have a free set of ThatReadingThing materials. I guess I should have followed that one up better…. I could see that he was using materials that didn’t require any training and it was interesting to see the cost of that. All teachers need the basic information in Explicit Language!

• While I use, approve of and enjoy alternative teaching methods, I’ve learned how important it is for seriously struggling older readers to have a very structured programme at the early stages. I think all three of James, Linda and Teresa could have got even further if they’d had one-to-one input as well as the group activities.

• Keep it about reading and writing. I so wanted to hand Linda a dry erase pen and the TRT boards and get her writing letters and saying the sounds - simple words and limited sounds to start but always about reading and writing rather than sign language and “tricks”. I did like the initial building of words using pipe cleaners because it interrupted Linda’s classroom panic but it didn’t help James and some intensive and encouraging one-to-one might have. (I like to think)

• Rules. Whenever I’ve been tempted to teach a rule (and damn the exceptions!), I find that the student spends far too much intellectual effort remembering the rule rather than the fact that you say “oe” when you see the symbol oa.

Looking forward to next week.