Connecting with parents

The Public Health Nurse told me that it was very difficult to get parents to participate in the No One is Perfect parenting class. Parents who were on income assistance would come because they felt pressured to attend although I was told they had been informed that attendance was voluntary.

There was a community Moms and Tots group going that met in the basement of a church. The moms in this group were mostly professional women. They had no program—parents chatted over coffee and the children played.

- Could we interest the moms in the Moms and Tots group to become parenting and literacy mentors for the parents targeted for the No One is Perfect class?

- Would the No One is Perfect parents come to this new group?

- Could we find funding to provide for salary for the facilitator, books, toys, craft supplies and snacks?

- Could we create a theme-based program that would hold the interest of both the Moms and Tots and the No One is Perfect groups?

- We spoke to the Moms and Tots group. They were pleased with this new purpose for their group and with the prospect of having a funding source for planned programming, leadership and supplies.

- We spoke to the Public Health Nurse who heartily endorsed the initiative and promised to promote and support this new family literacy program.

- We designed a proposal for what we wanted to do and submitted it to NLS.

- The concept has worked wonderfully well. There is a continuum of literacy competence among the parents. Parents with higher literacy skills are models for those with lower skills. Parents with good parenting skills are models for those with fewer parenting skills.

- The program has grown from one morning a week in Gimli to two mornings a week in Gimli and another morning in Winnipeg Beach.

Supporting learners’ goals

A learner, B, told me she was attending my adult literacy class because she wanted to support her husband who was also attending. She also told me that she knew her reading and writing skills were weak. B was only a few credits short of a complete grade 12. When I suggested she might want to finish her grade 12, she said she would very much like to do that, but would never do so if she had to go back to the high school to do it. Her experience in school had not been a good one. 

- I knew B would never complete an Independent Study Program (ISP) correspondence course on her own, nor could she afford the cost.

- There was no adult learning centre in Gimli.

- B thrived on the support she received and the help she could give (in math) in the adult literacy class.

- How could B get her grade 12 courses without going back to high school?

- Could we do something within our class to support her with her studying?

- How could we get B the credits for her work on ISP without paying the ISP costs?

- The program purchased the ISP course notes as teacher’s reference materials. This is the cheapest way to get the ISP materials.

- We asked the local high school if they would work with us to find a way to help by

• registering B as a student and not requiring her to attend, and
  
• either creating an exam themselves, or giving the program instructor the authority to assess B’s learning, and on that basis granting a course credit.

- The high school guidance counselor arranged to meet with B to determine exactly what credits she still needed.

- Because I and the following program instructor were qualified teachers, we were given the authority to assess the learning progress. On our recommendation, the learner would receive credit for course work completed.

- B has completed 3 courses this way and is very near having a complete grade 12.

Changing attitudes towards math

A young man, D, in an employment training literacy class told me that his weakest area was math, but there was no way he was going to do any math! He hated math and hated the math teacher he had in high school.

- D’s dream was to own a tow truck so that he could do tow jobs and snow clearing in the winter.

- The centre had a stack of ABE study modules which the manager told me were the content of the course.

- There was continuous intake into the centre and learners would often leave after a few weeks if they got a job.

- Most learners had bad memories of school and were in the class only because they had to be there.

- How could D ever manage the business aspects of being self-employed without math skills?

- How could I get him to learn math skills with his present attitude?

- How could I build trust and get the manager to accept another way of teaching this class?

- How could I design a program that accommodated the coming and going of students?

- How could I make learning relevant, fun and give learners a sense of accomplishment and pride?

- I asked D to talk more about his dream job. I asked questions that focused on his strengths and that I knew he could answer with confidence. Then we moved into questions that related to business management. This led us to creating a business plan in order to get financing, a marketing plan, and Revenue Canada accounting requirements.

- I gave the manager regular reports that contained the content addressed, the skills developed, and the learners’ own evaluation of the progress they were making.

- I tailored individual programs based entirely on the employment goals and dreams of each individual.

- D was now doing a great deal of math. Every time we identified a weakness, we looked at ways of dealing with it and practiced several scenarios similar to the one in which he had a weakness. There were no worksheets, no math books, and no drills. Once we had identified what operation (+, -, x) was required, he used the calculator and estimating to arrive at answers.

- We used the same method of learning math for learners who wanted to start a house painting business and to run a beauty salon.

- The attitudes of the class participants changed 180°. They were the first to tell newcomers to the class to park their attitude; this was a good place to be.

Supporting our staff

For most of our staff, teaching literacy classes is a part-time job for 2 evenings a week, 3 hours each evening.

- Most of our staff also have day jobs.

- Staff are located all across the Interlake region, many miles from each other.

- Having staff meetings and doing staff training was very difficult to manage.

- How can we do training effectively and efficiently?

- How can we facilitate networking among staff members?

- How can the coordinator keep informed of what is happening in the programs and provide support to staff?

- The coordinator began writing a monthly newsletter. Each newsletter included teaching resources, announcements and a short training article.

- The coordinator asked instructors to submit a monthly activity report, including topics covered, skills and strategies taught, and issues/celebrations of the job.

- The organization got a calling card number and a toll free number so staff could call each other and the coordinator without worrying about the cost.

- The newsletter has become very popular. It is now distributed all across the province.

- The staff appreciate the calling card and the toll free numbers and make good use of them.

- The monthly activity reports give the coordinator the information she needs in order to provide support to programs.

- The instructors are doing more reflective teaching than before.

Finding relevant materials

 Beginning reader learners were asking for homework, but they couldn’t read the instructions and couldn’t always remember them.

- Instructors were asking for materials for learners to use that didn’t require one-on-one teaching.

- There wasn’t much material out there that fit this need.

- How could we provide materials to fit this need?

- The coordinator and another staff member applied for an NLS grant to create 5 prototypes of independent learning materials for adult beginning readers.

- Two kinds of materials were produced, both using pictures as a starting point. One set used magnets to build sentences about daily living activities. The other was short stories on adult themes and a variety of follow-up activities. The stories are accompanied by oral instructions on a CD.

- Everyone who saw the materials liked them and wanted copies.

- CD copies of the materials have been distributed and are being used, but they must be printed before they can be used. Usually programs do this printing for learners.

- Unfortunately, we haven’t yet found funding to create more kits.

Valuing parenting skills

Parents in family literacy programs made comments that lead us to believe they didn’t recognize that the skills they learned through  parenting were essential skills that could be part of a resume.

- Many parents told us they planned to return to work after their children were in school but they didn’t have a current resume.

- A family literacy program is too short and too busy to focus effectively on resume-writing.

- How can we help parents recognize and value the essential skills they are developing through parenting?

- How can we help them create resumes that will showcase essential skills developed via parenting?

- How can we get parents together in a quiet place, without children, to work on their resumes?

- The family literacy coordinator designed a project that would bring parents together in focus groups to discover and examine what essential skills they were developing in parenting. We applied to NLS for funding for this project.

- These focus groups were planned outside of family literacy time. Parents were paid per diems and the cost of childcare so that they could attend the focus groups.

- Parents will be writing resumes as part of their time together.

- The family literacy coordinator will write up the process she developed and will then offer training to family literacy practitioners to use the process in their programs.

- The focus groups are meeting and their response has been very enthusiastic.

- The project is unfolding as we had hoped it would.

Helping learners move along

Very few of our learners were moving from literacy programs to mature grade 12 accreditation. They told us they weren’t confident of success. They also said that they preferred to stay in the literacy program where they felt safe and supported.

- The adult learning centre where mature grade 12 credits are offered often has adults registered who have gaps in their learning and aren’t succeeding in credit courses.

- How could we make the transition into adult learning centres safer and seamless for our learners?

- How could students registering in adult learning centres who would rather drop out than go to a literacy program be supported so they would stay in school and succeed?

- We asked two adult learning centres to partner with us and have a literacy program situated in their centre.

- Literacy and learning centre staff worked as a team.

- Learners were comfortable and could move seamlessly between programs.

- The concept worked very well in one centre and has been going for a number of years now. Some learners presently registered in the literacy program are also taking some credit courses and some students in the adult learning centre are getting literacy help to fill in some of their learning gaps.

- In the other centre, the project wasn’t as successful and the partnership has dissolved.

Adapting a framework

The provincial framework, STAGES, was originally designed so learners could earn certification.
It was being used effectively by only a few literacy programs in the province.

- Instructors said it was impossible for learners attending part-time evening programs to progress enough to complete the work for a certificate.

- Learners with short-term goals such as passing a driving test and learners with GED goals weren’t interested in the STAGES framework.

- Instructors said STAGE 1 was too advanced for some of their learners.

- Many instructors across the province were not confident in implementing STAGES, or were not convinced the framework worked well for learners who were not looking for certification.

- What could we do to make STAGES more accepted by both instructors and learners?

- How could instructors and learners be supported in using STAGES?

- How could instructors to be convinced that STAGES could be used with very basic learners?

- The coordinator could see how instructors could teach to the STAGES without working toward certification. She applied for an NLS grant to write guides about how tutors and learners could use STAGES 1 and 2.

- The coordinator wrote an article in the newsletter explaining how to articulate what was learned using the assignment objectives included the STAGES.

- The coordinator facilitated a one-day workshop that demonstrated how even the most basic learner could be involved in activities that used assignment objectives as learning outcomes.

- The STAGES guides for tutors and learners are widely used across the province.

- Instructors in our organization are now teaching to the STAGES.

- The workshop on using STAGE 1 with learners with very basic skills was very well received by practitioners.

- Practitioners are saying that each of the STAGES needs to be benchmarked so that learners have a greater sense of progress as they work through the assignments in the STAGES.

Too much to do

Here is a list of duties that Adult Learning and Literacy expects of Literacy Working Groups: completing a Good Practice Guide, writing a Development Plan, doing community outreach and publicity, finding an appropriate space for classes, deciding on class days and times, recruiting volunteer tutors and acknowledging their service, and recruiting learners and celebrating their learning achievements

- Members of the Literacy Working Group in our region are very busy people who volunteer their time. They didn’t have the time to perform these duties. Furthermore, some communities where we had programs had no representation on the regional board and couldn’t be effective in performing these duties.

- Teachers in the programs couldn’t be expected to do these things, although many of them did take on some of the duties simply because they had to be done.

- How could the regional board make sure that these duties were being done?

- How could communities be best served?

- Interlake Adult Literacy Association came up with the concept of community committees who would take on these tasks. With funding from an NLS grant we hired a community organizer in each of four communities in which there were programs.

—These organizers then recruited members for the community committee.

- The division of duties between the regional board and the community committees has been in existence for the past 10 years.

- Now, programs can’t be started in a new community unless the community establishes a community committee.

- The general coordination provides initial training for new committees and on-going support for established committees.

- Maintaining membership and keeping community committees active is an on-going challenge, but it is still the best way we know of managing a large geographic area.

Reducing travel costs

Often communities with the greatest need for literacy or EAL instruction have the hardest time finding qualified instructors. Instructors sometimes travel from 45 minutes to an hour to get to their learners and expect some remuneration for their travel costs.

- Some learners in workplace settings wanted to learn to write effective emails as part of their job duties. There was no instructor in their community.

- How can we reduce travel time and costs?

- How can we teach email writing skills effectively?

- We contacted the workplace management to arrange long distance calling privileges and to provide the employees with an email account.

- We paid the instructor for time to teach the employees via telephone and email as part of their learning plan.

- Managements were very supportive of this teaching method.

- The instructor was delighted to be able to teach from home.

- Learners have made good progress in their oral communication, writing and technology skills.

Supporting  people in entry-level jobs

Most employable Canadians at Levels 1 and 2 of ALLSS are working.

- Very few are enrolled in literacy programs.

- Most of these adults work at entry-level jobs which often require long hours, shift work and physical exertion.

- Many have families and recreational activities which are higher priorities than evening literacy classes.

- Many had negative learning experiences as children and don’t want to go back to school.

- Many think they are incapable of further academic advancement.

- Employers spend most of their training dollars on higher level people in their companies.

- Employers may not want to invest in training for people in entry-level jobs.

- How can we create opportunities for these adults to improve their literacy skills without requiring them to attend literacy classes?

- How can we persuade employers to be part of the solution to the problem?

- Identify an organization to undertake research that will:

• Persuade government to offer employers an incentive they can’t refuse to offer on-the-job training to people in entry-level jobs.
  
  
• Design the training to be genuine workplace training, including topics such as workplace safety, using a forklift, communicating with customers, and using computerized equipment.
  
  
• Have a literacy specialist work alongside the company trainer so that literacy development can also happen in all training.
  
  
• Don’t require participants to self-declare as literacy learners or be identified as needing literacy development.
  
  
• Develop assessment and progress evaluation tools to audit the success of this kind of training.

- No results, this research is still in the conceptualizing stage.

Allowing people to work on literacy while developing other skills

Adults are willing to attend programs that don’t ask them to self-identify as needing literacy—family literacy, study skills support while taking credentialed training, technology training, support groups etc.

- How can we create opportunities for literacy development in contexts other than literacy programs?

- How can we assess literacy needs in these contexts?

- How can we work with the facilitators of these programs, either alongside or by training the facilitator, so that literacy instruction occurs within the context of teaching something else?

- How can we evaluate progress so that we can persuade funders to support this kind of literacy teaching?

Family Literacy:
- Make family literacy programs all-inclusive, by doing theme-based programming which will appeal to all parents. No parents will feel targeted as being needy.

- Invite parents to participate in activities that will develop literacy skills—lending library, parents book club, reading and contributing to the program newsletter, discussion groups, etc.

- Develop tools to assess literacy needs and document growth in literacy competence.

Study Skills:
- Work with the literacy program to match a tutor with a learner who was taking a College course and didn’t know how to write book reports, the assessment tool used in this college course.

- Work with Workplace Education Manitoba to provide study skills instruction. One adult had failed a certification exam and his workplace wanted him to write again. Another adult had failed the entrance tests at Red River College and wanted to up-grade to try again.

- Study skills are taught using text materials and content from the courses students are taking.

Technology:
- Promote literacy programs as a place where adults can get technology training so they can say they are attending a computer class.

- Offer technology training that is planned according to the purpose adults have for learning, such as entering recipes onto the computer, writing a family Christmas letter, managing family budgets, rather than according to a preset curriculum that must be covered within a set period of time.

Support Groups:
- One program initiated discussion on this literacy development model with a diabetes support group in their community. 

Family Literacy:
- Parents with literacy competence from basic to advanced attend the family literacy program.

- Recruitment is never an issue; there are always lots of parents attending.

- Parents report that they are reading more than they used to and that they are reading differently than they used to.

- We are still working on an assessment and evaluation process that uses observation as a tool.

Study Skills:
- These adults didn’t need to self-declare that they needed literacy skills. The literacy development was done in the context of study skills, and used content and materials from the courses they were studying. For these reasons, we retained them as learners and they made excellent progress.

- Adults assessed their progress by demonstrating study techniques for the tutor.

Technology:
- Most adults in the technology classes are seniors. Adults know their limitations, although they don’t talk about them in literacy terms, and will self-select to come to technology courses offered by IALA rather than attend the curriculum-based courses offered by continuing education or Red River College.

- Adults assessed their progress with the products they produced on the computer, the facility they showed in accessing internet sites and the information they reported finding on the internet.

Support Groups:
- The support group responded favourably.
- Next steps have been identified:

• Explore ways to fund this kind of literacy delivery.
• Develop assessment and progress evaluation tools for this kind of a literacy model.