The Adult Basic Education Teacher's Toolkit

4: The Teacher's Toolbox

The Teacher's Toolbox

This chapter is grouped with Chapter 5, Reading Skills Toolbox, Chapter 6, Writing Skills Toolbox, and Chapter 7, Computing Skills Toolbox. Together these chapters contain a starter set of ideas and strategies that should be useful to you as you work with your students and other teachers to plan learning activities. As with any other art or craft, it is important for the teacher to be skilled in the use of many tools. What works best in one situation may be inappropriate in another. It is important for every teacher to find and learn to use a wide variety of ideas and strategies for helping learners achieve their learning goals. As you read handbooks, newsletters, curricula, and so forth, and as you interact with other teachers as well as with students, you will develop your own toolbox of teaching ideas.

The tips, suggestions, and strategies in Chapters 4 - 7 can help you get started in the classroom. The strategies discussed in these Toolbox chapters will give you the confidence that whatever you propose to do in terms of student learning activities has been tried before and found to be successful. Numerous curricula and teacher handbooks and resources exist with a bounty of valuable suggestions and ideas which you can use as a starting point. Several products recently developed by Adult Education Special Projects (funded by the Texas Education Agency) specifically address the concerns of teachers working with beginning literacy level adult learners and include the following.

• Adult Literacy and Mathematics Curriculum
• English Literacy for Speakers of Other Languages Curriculum
• Curriculum Development for Serving AFDC Participants in Adult Education
• Adult Education Training through Television Technology

These resources are especially valuable to teachers working with adult learners in Texas. These and many other relevant resources are available from your administrative unit or from the Adult Literacy Clearinghouse.

Call or write to ask for these materials and for bibliographies of additional resources available from the Adult Literacy Clearinghouse.

Adult Literacy Clearinghouse
Texas Center for the Advancement of Literacy and Learning
4477 TAMU
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843-4477
(800) 441-READ (441-7323) FAX: (979) 845-0952

As an ABE teacher, you should be receiving issues of the Adult Literacy Clearinghouse newsletter, The Texas Adult and Family Literacy Quarterly. These newsletters regularly feature articles of interest to teachers including suggestions for teaching practices based on the experiences and research of other teachers; current materials available on loan, as well as other free or inexpensive materials; a calendar of conferences and staff development opportunities for teachers; and other items of interest. If you are not receiving this newsletter, call or write the Adult Literacy Clearinghouse (800-441-7323). Staff members will add your name to the mailing list.

Strategies for Comprehension

Before going on to the three major sections of reading, writing, and computing, found in Chapters 5, 6, and 7, go over the strategies given in this section. Take time to use these strategies in your classroom whenever possible to help students become better learners.

Learners must develop their ability to monitor their own thought processes (called metacognition) while reading, writing, and computing. Learning to be aware of their thought processes helps them understand what they are practicing with much greater longevity. You can teach students strategies and/or strengthen strategies they already possess so that learners are aware of whether or not they are comprehending. To facilitate this learner process, encourage learners to engage in the following activities.

Before reading, writing, or computing, students should do the following.

• Consider what they already know about the subject.
• Predict what the activity will tell them.
• Consider why they are doing the activity.

During reading, writing, or computing, help students do these activities.

• Pay careful attention to what they are reading, writing, or computing.
• Create mental pictures. When necessary, draw diagrams of their concepts of what they are reading, writing, or computing. Visualize.
• Stop and reconsider what is unclear.
• Stop and mentally explain to themselves what they have just read, written, or computed.

After reading, writing, or computing, guide students' consideration of the following.

• What they have learned.
• How what they have learned fits with what they already know about a topic.
• How they will use this information.

Mental Modeling

Another good strategy to use with your students is that of mental modeling. Mental modeling is a teaching technique in which students observe the invisible mental processes necessary for reading, writing, or problem solving. You need to demonstrate out loud the metacognitive strategies and mental processes used in reading and problem solving. This activity requires you to think aloud as you read, write, or solve a problem. The following example of mental modeling illustrates how you can demonstrate the thinking/reading process.

Newspaper Exercise

You can find advertisements (ads) for housing in the classified section of the newspaper and other local real estate publications. Before you read an ad, go through the following thought processes with your class.

• Consider what you already know about looking for housing. Write these down for further consideration.
• Consider what you need to know as you consider housing options. Write these down for further consideration.

While reading the ad, do these activities.

• Look for information you can use to answer questions about the housing options.
• Identify unfamiliar words, phrases, abbreviations, and so forth, and write them in a personal dictionary of terms to be learned.

After reading the ad, go through the following processes.

• Consider whether the information in the ad fits with what you already know about housing.
• Reread the ad for further clarification or seek clarification from others if there is a question about what the ad means.
• Record information to be compared with that of other housing if the ad describes housing that requires further consideration.

You can go through this process with students, modeling how you would complete each step with a specific example. Students will be able to see reading, writing, and computing as processes they can use to gain meaning from printed text. Students see the information they gain as being useful and relevant to them.

Core Thinking Skills

Use this table to get ideas for helping students develop their thinking skills prior to a specific learning activity.

Chapter 5 | Contents