This case study investigates Carolyn, an effective volunteer ESL and literacy instructor of adult African refugees, in order to understand both what it means to be a qualified instructor, and also how community-based volunteer instructors may become more qualified. The study's findings suggest that Carolyn's qualifications are a combination of…

Library-based adult literacy programs rely on volunteers to provide tutoring services to adult learners. A high percentage of volunteer tutors are matched with a reading-disabled adult literacy learner. Although all tutors are required to complete preservice tutor training, there is a limited amount of research that documents whether they utilize…

Interviews 16 volunteer adult literacy tutors, finding that many of them do not implement strategies and practices currently recognized as most effective, but tend to implement strategies to which they themselves were exposed as learners, possibly leading to feelings of frustration and defeat for their clients. (SR)

This handbook is designed to help literacy coordinators, especially in New Mexico, develop and implement volunteer literacy programs. The seven chapters provide information on (1) organizing the program; (2) recruitment of volunteers and students; (3) training tutors; (4) methods of instruction; (5) recordkeeping; (6) recognition and placement for…

This paper outlines a model for delivering small group literacy to adult learners. The model provides an implementation plan consisting of four steps: preparing for a group, getting started with a group, developing the group, and bringing the cycle to a close. Suggestions for implementation are provided for each of the four steps. Information…

The 1988-89 Highlands Educational Literacy Project (HELP) in southwest Virginia was initially designed to provide local volunteer tutors with intensive training in the Laubach one-to-one method of teaching reading. HELP was a cooperative effort of community service agencies, church and civic groups, and interested individuals to provide free…

This guide takes illustrated children's literature into the world of service learning (positing that when these two are joined, learning opportunities open up) and suggests how teachers can enhance students' service learning experiences with children's literature. Topics covered in the nine short sections of the guide include telling stories, the…

This paper is a transcript of a videotaped roundtable discussion on the role of volunteers in adult literacy in Canada. The participants expressed concern that tutors may not be able to provide the quality of learning experience for adult students that trained teachers could and that volunteers could be taking jobs that should go to trained…

This handbook grew out of the experiences of the teachers and students at the Read/Write/Now Adult Learning Center, a community-based literacy program in Springfield, Massachusetts. It is both a documentation of the experiences of the program and a guide for teachers. The four sections of the handbook contain a number of modules, each of which…

This manual is intended to assist volunteer coordinators involved in the Kansas Volunteer Tutor Utilization (KV-TUTOR) project. The first section, which deals with planning, covers management by objectives and a clarification system to test objectives that is denoted by the acronym SMAC (specific, measurable, achievable, compatible). A section on…

This manual is designed to aid volunteer tutors to use the LEX [language experience] Process for English Reading Instruction Manual (see note) to provide survival and functional English as a second language (ESL) to immigrant and minority people. The Process employs the methods of "language experience" in response to the widely varied language…

The Literacy Project for Adults with Learning Disabilities addressed a perceived and documented need for more effective interventions for use by adult literacy tutors when working with clients with learning disabilities. It provided training and technical assistance for tutors, adult basic education/General Educational Development program…

More than 50 percent of the world's adult population is unable to read or write at all. Since many of the tutors of adult illiterates have not had training in the teaching of reading, this booklet was written to introduce these tutors to the practical aspects of an area which has a vast literature of its own. The eleven sections in the booklet…

The author examines some of the barriers to learning found in public schools and concludes with an alternative which has the potential of providing a different philosophic basis for adult basic education programs, a literacy technique developed and implemented by Paulo Freire in Brazil. (MF)

Compares two approaches to teaching reading to adults: the eclectic, research-based method of Literacy Volunteers of America (LVA) and the phonics-based Laubach Literacy International. Concludes that LVA has the advantages of adaptability to student differences, a thorough evaluation system, and a superior published reading series. (SK)