Improving Accuracy: Literacy Basics for Your Adult Learners

Friday, May 13 and June 3, 2022
1:00 - 2:30 PM (via Zoom)

Workshop Description
Part 1: Phonemic Awareness Overview
Awareness of speech sounds underlies accurate decoding and spelling. In this session, participants will differentiate voiced from voiceless consonant sounds, discriminate all vowel sounds in English by their tongue placement in the mouth, and explore strategies to help learners with tricky sound confusions such as /th/ and /f/, /sh/ and /s/, /i/ and /e/.

Learning Objectives: Participants will be able to

• differentiate speech sounds and how they are articulated;  
• Identify sounds that are often troublesome;  
• explore ways to practice blending and segmenting sounds.

Part 2: It's All About the Vowel Sound
Why do the 2 e's in 'even' have different sounds? In this session, participants will identify the 6 syllable types in English and connect this knowledge to improving accuracy in decoding and spelling. We will then divide two-syllable words with all syllable types and explore in-person and remote activities to practice skills in the adult learner classroom. 

Learning Objectives: Participants will be able to

• explore how syllable patterns dictate the sound of the vowel;  
• classify words by syllable type;  
• recognize how syllable division strategies increase reading accuracy.

Presenter: 
Lisa M. Brooks, Ed.D. is the Director of Commonwealth Learning Center’s Professional Training Institute, a non-profit educational agency based in Needham.  In this role, she trains and observes teachers and offers professional development related to reading, dyslexia, and assessment. She is a Fellow and board member of the Orton-Gillingham Academy.  Lisa holds a doctoral degree in Adult Learning and Leadership and a master’s degree in special education. She previously taught students with dyslexia in public schools and has worked with adult learners in Tucson and in Cambridge.  Teaching ABE students is her favorite work.   

This workshop is free to staff of all Massachusetts non-profit ABE and ESOL Programs.

Questions with an * are required. Thank you!