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April 20, 2015
Free Curriculum Materials for Adult Emergent Readers
Does your learning center serve adult emergent readers? Do you have classroom volunteers you’d like to empower to do more pull-out and 1-1 work with your students? Pictures and manipulatives are a valuable tool to use in literacy-level instruction, but pulling together the materials for activities can be time-consuming for both teachers and volunteers. The Elder Literacy Initiative’s free curriculum is a collection of activities for adult emergent readers that is all-inclusive and ready to use.
What is the “The Elder Literacy Initiative”?
The Elder Literacy Initiative is a grass-roots effort that grew out of an AmeriCorps VISTA project based at Skyline Tower, an affordable housing complex in St Paul. Elders participating in on-site ELL programs were in need of quality literacy-level instruction that met their needs and could be implemented by volunteer tutors and teachers. A curriculum development project was undertaken, and in May 2015, The Elder Literacy Initiative’s curriculum was licensed for distribution. To date it has been shared with over 200 agencies in the US, Canada and Australia!
How was the curriculum developed?
This curriculum drew on guidance from the Minnesota Literacy Council and integrated best practices and essential content as determined by the ATLAS Transitions Integration Framework and the Massachusetts ABE Basic Literacy Standards.
Who can use the curriculum?
This free curriculum can be used anywhere there is one volunteer tutor and one adult emergent reader. Each activity’s instructions are explicit and take care to explain the why’s and how’s of literacy-level instruction. The curriculum is easy to use and can be customized to suit your learning community. While the activities were designed for volunteers tutors working 1-1 with a student, teachers can also adapt the activities for use in the classroom or in small groups.
What is included?
The Elder Literacy Initiative’s innovative curriculum includes over 250 activities across 13 themes. The curriculum activities can stand alone or build on each other. Each activity has instructions, and all materials are included within each digital file. You can print out activities one at a time or as a complete set to use as a classroom resource(step-by-step assembly instructions are included).