At last, after another 2 months, I have drafted the first 2 booklets in a series of literacy teaching resources.
The beginning of all this was in 2003, when I was kept very busy teaching in prisons. I felt that the resources available were limited. Most seemed to me to be written for young children. Adult learners did not like them. In prison, they are not frightened to say so! Most teachers had to resort to downloading material at home, or search for suitable resources.
My material is called 'Starter Level'. This is intended for anyone over early childhood, say 11 onwards. It would cover National Curriculum Entry 2, Entry 3 and Level 1. I think it can be used for Key Skills 1 and 2, ESOL, and for many of those with learning or behaviour difficulties.
These resources are intended to be useful even in the most difficult teaching situations, where interactive whiteboards and rows of computers are not available for teaching. Do you teach one-to-one? In small groups? In informal surroundings? Are resources budgets restricted or non-existent? Are your teaching books 10 years old, or written for kiddies?
The topic of this first series is punctuation, helping the learner in making sense of the written word. There will be more series, hopefully, and to definetly also cover numeracy skills teaching resources.
Based on my prison teaching experience, I'm using a character I'm calling Bert Blagger to typify the sort of prisoner who is working very hard to catch up on his missed education. He's determined to achieve well.
Most of those working in education agree that poor literacy skills really do disadvantage people. In many cases, inadequate parenting and disruptive behaviour leads to poor school attendance. In turn, this impacts on the quality of education achieved by the child.
Without literacy skills, few subjects can be mastered. Poor education leads to a limited choice of work. A solution can be to turn to crime.
Bert wants a better life upon release and not fall into the re-offending and re-admission trap that befalls around 60% of released prisoners.
He knows he has an uphill struggle to get society to re-accept him after release. He has to admit the prison record, which will greatly restrict his employability.
With the resultant poor job prospects, it's all too easy to fall back into criminal life. Again, about 60% do and get caught.
He wants to 'catch back up' on literacy and numeracy, avoid falling back in with old associates and criminal underworld connections. He knows that if he does, he'll soon be back in prison.
If he does has difficulty in getting a job, he wants to be confident that he has enough knowledge to become self-employed.
As a teacher, would you wish to help him?
Any comment?
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