Assessing & Monitoring Learners
A New Toolkit to Assess Beginning Readers & Writers
How do you assess beginning readers and writers?
The Office of Literacy and
Essential Skills (OLES) has funded a two-year project to address this need.
The toolkit will contain a range of tools and manipulatives to assess the
adult’s literacy practices, print conventions and concepts, phonemic
awareness, sight word recognition, comprehension, phonics knowledge, and
writing. The Centre for Education (CEW) is sponsoring this project in
partnership with the Centre for Family Literacy, Norquest College, Vancouver
Community College, the Toronto Public Library, and Literacy Nova Scotia. For
more information, contact Pat Campbell at 780-448-7323 or at
pat@grassrootsbooks.net.
Children
Mental Health Literacy for Children
Local author, Marla Rosen, has produced a book, CD, puppet show and concert on children’s emotional health. She is looking for additional opportunities to present her
program to children and teachers. Borrow the book and
CD, Emotions, from the Resource Centre, or visit
http://www.emotionsbook.com to purchase the book and
arrange a workshop.
Watching Movies with Subtitles Supports Literacy
Researchers from the University of Canterbury’s School of
Literacies and Arts in Education trialed a US-based reading
programme called Audio Visual Achievement in Literacy,
Language and Learning (AVAILLL). It is based on the use of movie subtitles
to support literacy activities. They found that struggling readers who took
part in the programme improved their reading age by 1.2 years in just six
weeks. For more information, read the University’s July 18, 2008 press
release at http://www.comsdev.canterbury.ac.nz/news/2008/080718b.shtml