Learning Notes for XXXX
Date: XXX
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Learning Styles
Use a combination of visual, auditory and kinesthetic strategies. Together the two of you will find
what works best as you get to know your learner better.
Environment
A quiet, private place is always ideal.
Goals: See attached Goals Form.
Current Reading Skills:
• beginning reader
• intermediate reader
• advanced reader
Current Writing Skills:
(See writing sample, attached)
Advice on lesson planning
Teaching Adults strategies to use (add others as they seem appropriate)
Word Study
Activity 19 (p. 59) “Sight Words” (for non-phonetic sight words)
Activity 22 (p. 62) “Phonics: Same or Different?” (sound separation and identification)
Activity 25 (p. 65) “Phonics: Decoding with Consonants” (decoding by ignoring vowel patterns)
Activity 26 (p. 66) “Phonics: Teaching Syllables”
Activity 27 (p. 68) “Word Patterns” (word families)
Activity 32 (p. 73) “Word Parts: Compound Words”
Reading
Activities 7-11 (p. 46-49) Language Experience Story (LEA)
Activity 16 (p. 55) “Echo Reading”
Activity 47 (p. 90) “Before-During-After (Directed Reading)”
Activity 49 (p. 93) “Asking Questions”
Activity 53 (p. 97) “Using a K-W-L Chart”
Activity 55 (p. 100) “Reading Fiction WWWWWH”
Writing
Activity 59 (p. 110) “Controlled Writing: CLOZE Sentences”
Activity 61 (p. 112) “Controlled Writing: Sentence Completion”
Activity 52 (p. 114) “Controlled Writing” Making Lists!”
Activity 75 (p. 130) “Free Writing: Mapping”
Binder p. 35 “Dictated Sentences”
Reminders about helpful strategies introduced in tutor training
(You and your learner can decide what works best)
Reading:
Choose readings together. Some ideas:
Poetry
Song lyrics (listening to song or watching video)
Learning Experience Stories: Plan to write LEA’s onto flashcards, reassemble them, play
matching games, etc.
Practice activating prior knowledge: work on remembering to read, think about, and talk about titles of
passages so that prior knowledge can be activated.
Webbing, Mapping
Brainstorming
Talking about a picture before reading
Talking about a title before reading
Making a list of what you want to learn from a reading
Making a list of what you learned from a reading
Discuss whether it would be helpful to practice reading instructions and following them together
(Adult Ed homework assignments, assembling something, doing a housework task, etc.)
Other possible reading materials to use:
Reader’s Digest stories.
Newspapers (News For You, a weekly newspaper written for new adult readers,
http://www.newsforyouonline.com/index.asp)
Bank statements, other consumer documents (tutor or learner could bring own)
Writing
Webbing: Try different varieties, starting with tutor taking dictation to write the web.
Try choosing a topic together, then each writing a web about it.
You don’t even have to turn the web into sentences every time.
Try out written conversation. In the long run, this may prove a very important and useful (and fun!)
strategy.
Journaling: Each keep a daily journal and share each week. Generally, a journal is a place for
thoughts, but not editing perfection, so accuracy in spelling/sentence formation is not
important. It can create writer’s block to go back & “fix” spelling later, so it’s often best to just
leave a journal alone. The tutor or learner can make notes about spelling words that come up in
the journal, and work on them separately. To start, journal a couple of words each week. The
tutor should journal too, then share. For a beginner, a journal can just be one word a week or
one word a night, and the tutor should mirror this.
Experiment with word games that involve writing, especially those that help practice sight words or
word families.
Together, write documents that the learner needs in order to communicate with care providers, such as
doctors and home health aides. Medication lists, chore schedules, etc.
Word Study (“Keys”)
Sight words:
Practice sight words through reading, flashcards, cloze exercises.
Make a list of words that don’t follow regular phonics and spelling rules that need to be memorized by
sight, as they come up.
Sketch picture associations with each of these words.
Word families:
Work a lot with word families, because it’s an efficient way to get at single-letter phonics too.
If the learner is interested, write rhyming poems together using word families.
Phonics:
It may be helpful to work with big flashcards, assembling letters into words. Flashcards may also be
helpful for breaking down words that come up in writing (visualize the chunking and sounding them
out.) The flipping phonics chart sold by New Readers Press (or one you create from spiral bound
index cards) is often a helpful tool.
Keys in general:
Chunk words into syllables, spell words out, talk about words, find small words in the bigger words,
skip over words & guess them from meaning, think about similar words, etc. See what combination of
keys strategies works best.
Spelling:
If the learner likes it, use written conversation as part of choosing what words to work on.
Be sure to incorporate writing and spelling in your work on reading word families.
There are a number of spelling workbooks available at the library if you two decide to use a workbook
for this kind of thing.
Use boggle cubes or Scrabble tiles to work on word families, the effect of a silent “e”, blends, etc.
Other Suggestions
Keep a log of books read or words learned each month.
Keep a notebook of everything you have written and read together. Look back at it over time and
make notes about where you both see progress.
Set at least one attainable goal each month. You may also want to set weekly goals. Together, track
accomplishment of goals and what was learned on a chart in the notebook.
Have fun, and keep talking about what your learner’s priorities are and what is working best.
Last, but not least, keep in touch -- call or email staff and/or contact your mentor. Remember, we need
to hear from you!