Photo Stories

Dear Tutors and Teachers:

We do not often give guarantees in the teaching business, but I will go out on a limb here. If you try this technique, I can guarantee a measure of success at getting your learner to generate sentences and tell you things you did not know. Deborah Spark, a creative writing professor at the University of Wisconsin gave her class (myself included) these instructions:

1. Take out a sheet of paper.
2. Stick a photograph of someone or something (she suggested a family member) on the paper.
3. Write about the picture and what it makes you remember.

When Prof. Spark gave me the assignment I attached a photo of my mother to the paper and put it in my typewriter. Then I sat down on in my cave and started a fire with a flint and steel as I began to write. Page after page spilled out of.

The photo story idea is simple and it works. It can be a way to use the Language Experience Approach (LEA) with your learner. In the LEA technique the tutor begins by acting as a listener/scribe. With a picture provoking a story as described above, get your learner's words down on paper, leaving a blank line between each line of printed text. Verify the story by reading it back to your learner. You can read the story several times together, always tracking each word with a finger. With repetition your learner will begin to pick out new sight words to use on their own.

Give it a try. And when you do, ask your learner if he or she is willing to share it with others. Literacy Network is looking for learner visual art and writing to put on its walls. We are calling it the Home Writing Project.

License to Read

Barbara Huntington from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) sends a link to a site with information that tutors might want to share with learners who want to get their driver’s licenses. Getting a license is one of the most common goals that learners report to us. Barbara writes,

DOT [Wisconsin Department of Transportation] has a modified version of the Wisconsin Driver’s Book. You can download it at: the Wis - DOT website. I think it has more illustrations than the regular one and the vocabulary is simplified.

But what is even better, is that DOT has oral versions of the text so that people can listen as they read along with the book. They can listen to the text chapter by chapter if they go to: www.dot.wisconsin.gov/drivers/drivers/education/needs.htm These files can be listened to on line, or downloaded and used on and MP3 player.

Both are free. I think these might be of great help to many students who want to get a driver's license, but find the reading level of the regular manual too taxing.

Here is a small excerpt from the manual, showing the simple language and helpful imagery.

Controlled Intersections

Intersections with stop signs at all corners (4-way stop) are called controlled intersections. The first driver to get there has the right-of-way. If two or more drivers get there at the same time, the driver to your right can go first.

I had always wondered what the rule was about that situation. This clears it right up.