Undoubtedly your father was proud and did not like being treated like a
child.

On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 6:35 AM, Elida Perez-Knapp
<e_perezknapp at yahoo.com>wrote:


> From a strictly personal point of view, I certainly agree that reading

> material must be relevant and is a major tool for those learning to read. My

> father was one of the those that lost interest in attending Adult Education

> classes because of the lack of relevance. As an adult in the 60's, raising a

> large family, he attended classes to learn how to read. He knew this was the

> key to getting and keeping a job. My mother tried to teach him and he did

> learn how to sign his name but he never learned to read. I remember him

> coming home from the classes and sharing with mother how the class

> would practice out-loud the sounds of the letters, "b -- bird, bird". He

> would laugh and say how silly that was.

>

> One of the jobs he held was in construction and there was his interest. I

> believe that if the topic of the adult education class had been anything in

> relation to construction he would have had a totally different

> experience. My father was an intelligent, hardworking man who accomplished

> many things in life yet did not overcome the challenge of learning to read.

> I realize that the teaching methods in AE have advanced tremendously since

> the 60's yet I often wonder how much more my day would have accomplished if

> only he had learned to read.

>

> Elida Perez Knapp

>

>

>

> *************************

> Courage does not always roar.

> Sometimes it is the quiet voice

> at the end of the day that says,

> "I will try again tomorrow."

> anonymous

>

> --- On *Sun, 1/11/09, Steve Kaufmann <steve at thelinguist.com>* wrote:

>

> From: Steve Kaufmann <steve at thelinguist.com>

> Subject: [EnglishLanguage 3314] Re: quantifying student interest in

> material

> To: "The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List" <

> englishlanguage at nifl.gov>

> Date: Sunday, January 11, 2009, 11:06 AM

>

> First of all, brain research has shown that we learn best from content that

> is relevant. Read Manfred Spitzer, the Human Brain and the School of Life.

>

> Second of all, the need for interesting material is greatest for people who

> do not read well in a given language. To give these learners content that is

> of no interest or relevance is an idea that strikes be as highly

> counterproductive.

>

> Third, someone in an academic or professional setting should already be a

> competent reader, and having made a choice of subject to study, or

> professional career, should be interested in what he or she is reading.

>

> Steve Kaufmann

> www.lingq.com

>

> On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 12:32 PM, stephen churchville <

> schurchville at hotmail.com> wrote:

>

>> Hi,

>>

>> The idea that interesting reading material makes for more

>> effective literacy instruction always sounded right to me, but now I am

>> thinking about cases where that might not be true, and wonder if trying to

>> keep it interesting is a disservice to students with academic or workplace

>> aspirations, where we are all required to read and understand lots of

>> uninteresting material.

>>

>> Does anyone know of any reports or studies that measure how student

>> interest in reading material influences outcomes?

>>

>> And how that then plays out in standardized tests?

>>

>> Thanks

>> Stephen Churchville

>> www.LessonWriter.com <http://www.lessonwriter.com/>

>>

>>

>>

>>

>>

>> ------------------------------

>> Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync. Check it out.<http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t1_allup_explore_012009>

>>

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>

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>

>

>

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