Make Your Own Flashcards

You can make your own flashcards to use in lessons for ESL or Basic Literacy. I found that I could make a nice looking set in just a few minutes using Power Point on my computer at Literacy Network. Granted, you need to know the fundamentals of Power Point if you want to do it quickly, but if you have it, use it. As I often say about finding resources, "It's free if you get it at work."
I made bilingual cards here. For reading, you could create a card with a big letter (lowercase) and a keyword from the back of your phonics cards. You could bring a laptop to lessons and simply cycle through the cards as a slide show. To find the images you could either use Google and do an image search then copy-and-paste the image onto a Power Point slide, or use a clip art disk. The less technically adept may have found this paragraph to be gobbledygook. Any tutor who wants more advice about this may call me for tips by phone.
Myself, I still haven't got all aspects of PowerPoint totally nailed down, even though I use it for trainings and presentations. For instance, I haven't figured out how to make nice handouts that you could use to print your slides if you don't have access to a computer during lessons. However, I did find this exercise pretty easy. I'll be on vacation next week, so please let me know if you learn anything on your own. As always, thanks for teaching someone.

Dotted Lines

Jean Kalscheur, fresh out of pre-service training, has become This Week’s Favorite Tutor! Jean informed me of a free resource for learners and tutors working on handwriting. The two websites below give you a way to create your own writing paper templates. The writing paper resembles the stuff we used in grade school, with the dotted line between big lines.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/CT101448201033.aspx?stt=1 This link has templates for specialty papers for MS Office. It includes templates for MS Office 97 to MS Office 2007 users. The first few pages are for Office 2007. Keep going to find templates for earlier versions of MS Office. The penmanship/writing papers are mixed in with the other specialty papers, but there are lots of variations in lines/dotted lines so one can select the writing paper that works best for a learner.

http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/ Scroll down about ¾ of the page to Writing / Penmanship / Note-Taking papers. These download to pdf, so PC or Mac or person without MS Office can download these templates. These templates have a nice feature in that you can select a color to make the lines, which might provide better contrast for some learners.

If using lots of paper, it would be less expensive to buy “penmanship” paper at a school or office supply store. But the templates are helpful to determine what paper works for a learner (bigger space between lines, dotted lines, color contrast, alphabet reminder at top of pages, etc.) and for when you need paper now and didn’t have time to stop and get it at the store.

Now I had a little trouble with the Microsoft page, but I eventually solved it. Please note: it seems to work better with Internet Explorer than any other browser. Wonder why that is? Hmm.

There’s nothing quite like having a volunteer tutor. Thanks, as always, for helping someone.

Link to Another Blog

Well, you should not be surprised that there are other literacy blogs out there. The Literacy Tribune just put out their second issue this month, with a front page story on identity theft. They also spotlight new readers as writers and feature articles on civics and other public service announcements. This blog will keep a link to them on the right side of the page. Please pay them a visit, won't you?

Health Literacy

This week I asked the Regional Literacy Consultants of Wisconsin Literacy a question, namely, what resources are out there for tutors and teachers to use with learners who are 1) interested in health literacy and 2) would like some direction as to how to speak to their health care providers.

Margarete Cook, Northwest Regional Consultant, wrote back, saying, “There is a wonderful free curriculum available for ESL online called Project Shine. It is located at http://www.projectshine.org/healthliteracy/healthlitunits.htm. This site has a downloadable Word document with helpful pictures and easy-language instruction.”
Below is an excerpt I cut and pasted from that document:

Before you read: Look at the pictures (A-D) and answer the questions.

Shapiro, N. and Adelson-Goldstein, J. (1998). The Oxford Picture Dictionary. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 85.

1. Who do you see in these pictures?
2. Where are they?
3. Who is the man calling? Why?

Margarete continues, “Another resource for ESL is called Picture Stories for Adult ESL Health Literacy. It is located at this link. I would think that both of these would help the learner with terminology and understanding to communicate with their provider.” And finally, to see a site that has dialogues, readings and puzzles for beginning students, visit http://literacynet.org/vtd/.

From Marsha Connet, the Good Consultant of the Northwest:

“One of the best tools out there is the Ask Me 3 program from Clear Health Communication. It teaches the student three basic questions to ask their health care provider at each visit.

I've taught it to student-tutor pairs, individuals with ESL and other communication issues, the elderly and the general public and it's always well received."

From: healthliteracy-bounces@nifl.gov

Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 1:19 PM

Lorraine,

Here are some ideas - things the patient can say - and sources:

• "Can you show me any pictures of this?" (Ref. Houts, Doak, Doak, Loscalzo, "Using pictures in health education: Patient Ed and Counseling, May, 2006.) Pictures help greatly in patient understanding and recall.
• "In this brochure you've given me, could you show me (or highlite) the most important thing for me to do?" (Lorraine, if you will be presenting with slides, you could show an example of this.)
• Bring a spouse or a family member with you who might remind you of qestions or concerns that you have - and who will also listen to the doctor's answers.
• For procedures to be done by the patient, and for multiple medication taking, ask "Could you show me how to do that?"

These are a few patient interactions ideas. See more starting on page 158 of "Teaching patients with low literacy skills, 2nd Ed."

Thanks very much the Regional Literacy Consultants for this helpful information.