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Recent Newsletter Articles
Total Physical Response (TPR): A Curriculum for Adults
Learn about the "how" and "why" of using TPR in the classroom and explore a lesson routine that can be used for a wide variety of TPR topics. A great resource for teachers who are new to incorporating TPR into their lessons. Read More
8 Strategies for Building Relationships with ELLs in Any Learning Environment
Learn how educators can build authentic relationships with ELLs in virtual and hybrid settings, as well as how they can connect students' experiences to meaningful instruction. This article was written for a K-12 audience, but ABE teachers will find the recommendations to be helpful and easily implemented with adult learners. Read More
Stress Reduction in the Adult Basic Education Classroom
Teachers recognize the value of their classrooms as safe venues for adults to practice healthy coping skills and to develop supports, but they are not always comfortable knowing how to respond to the emotional needs of students. While teachers are not therapists, they can be educated in approaches that promote emotional and psychological well-being, and incorporate strategies into the classroom that help students to learn more efficiently. Read More
Problem-Solving Resources – Robert Kaplinsky
Kaplinsky's website is devoted to helping students become better problem solvers, critical thinkers, and mathematical reasoners. It contains free, downloadable lesson plans that are leveled from K-8th grade, are built around real-life situations, and take a problem-based learning approach. Both Kaplinsky's lessons and Problem-Solving Framework have useful applications inside and outside of the math classroom, and could be used to help students unpack a writing prompt, understand a complex question on the GED test, and so on. Read More
Virtual Math Manipulatives
This resource contains numerous math manipulatives to use in your virtual classroom. Everything from coins to fraction pieces to number lines to algebra tiles – this resource has it all! Read More
Sight Words
For teachers serving beginning-level adult readers and working on alphabetics, this website provides a FREE source of sight word flashcards, games, lessons, and activities. All are focused on the Dolch Sight and Fry Instant lists; two collections of words that all beginning readers (at GE K-3) should recognize without sounding out letter by letter. Read More
Sight Words
For teachers serving beginning-level adult readers and working on vocabulary, this website provides a FREE source of sight word flashcards, games, lessons, and activities. All are focused on the Dolch Sight and Fry Instant lists; two collections of words that all beginning readers (at GE K-3) should recognize without sounding out letter by letter. Read More
e-Advanced Alphabetics
NEW SLIDES RECENTLY ADDED! This electronic, screen-shareable resource includes Google slide sets (in PDF format) for remotely teaching compound words, common suffixes, common prefixes, and related word families. Read More
The Change Agent Resource Packets
These high-quality, relevant materials provide a basis for teachers who want to start conversations about facing racism, racial equity, and other social justice topics pertaining to race in the U.S. The lesson packets are free to download, edit, and use. Read More
ESL Literacy Readers (Bow Valley Readers)
This collection of beloved theme-based readers for beginning levels of ESL literacy has been discontinued (in late 2024). They are no longer available at the Bow Valley College site. However, colleagues at the Immigrant Welcome Center in Indianapolis, Indiana, have a number of the readers posted (with permission) on their Adult ELL Pathway to Literacy website. This document outlines the changes and how to find these materials. Read More