How can I teach teenagers to read?

Question

I have been working at a school for homeless youth. Recently, I've discovered that many of them cannot read. I would love to be able to teach as many of them as possible how to read. Help!

Answer 1

One thing is that they must see how reading would help them right now in their lives. Help them read somethinguseful that they can immediately need. don't start with dick and jane. that is irrelevant. try reading things that interest them; music, album covers, ads for things they'd like to buy, anything that will actually interest them now.

Answer 2

Homeless youth are often very culturally deprived, having not attending any school regularly, not eaten regularly. They have often never been to a zoo, or much of anywhere except one shelter after another just trying to survive.

I am a tutor, and have dealt with deprived children, adolescents and adults. I use two things together: first is the phonics method of reading to start off with,, and it is basic

1. Reading in English goes from left to right,
2. Each of 26 letters stands for sounds that we make with our mouths - so learning the alphabet and the sounds of the letters is first.
3. Spend time making combinations of 3 letter 'cvc' (consonant - vowel - consonant) words. Make flashcards, or use blocks to switch letters, making words like 'hat, cat, bat' switching off the first letter, then 'hat, ham, had' switching the last letters. Then switch the vowels, 'hat, hot, hit, hut'. do it slowly so they can really see and think about how each letter has affected the word.

I use a text called 'plaid phonics' that can be found at this link:
http://www.pearsonlearning.com/mcp/phonics.cfm

also something called, 'Rock 'n Learn: Phonics: volumes I & II'

If they don't know what a word means, they will not be able to spell it cuz it doesn't make any sense to them, so trips to museums, zoos, libraries, to get exposure to things really helps.

Here's some online phonics resource materials you can use:

http://www.nuspel.org/

http://progressivephonics.com/download_p2.htm

Now, after all of that, there are a lot of words that just are not phonetically spelled in English, called 'sight words' and these must be memorized: words like, "said" 'come' 'to, too, two', 'would, could', etc. There is a list of required words for basic literacy . Here is a link to a sight about those:

http://www.literacyconnections.com/Dolch.php

Answer 3

I have worked successfully with young children, teenagers and adults who have not learned how to read -- or who did not learn to read well. It is very possible to have someone reading adequately within 3-6 months with as little as 15-30 minutes of teaching time per session. I recommend a phonics-based method rather than a memorization of words method. Phonics is like providing the key to a hidden code -- once mastered, the student can go on to learn for themselves. A great, simple, inexpensive book for teacher and student is called Alphaphonics. Saxon Phonics is also great -- this one is more expensive but comes in a kit with word games, etc., and can be re-used. I believe these can be found on amazon.com. I can give more detailed input if you need.

Susan

Answer 4

Hi Yassie,

How wonderful of you! People like you restore my faith in humanity.

I am student teaching right now and had to take twelve credit hours to learn how to teach reading!

I have several suggestions:

1. Call local literacy organizations. You can check the phone book, or sometimes they have ads on busses. If you need help locating one, let me know.

2. There are research-based methods to teach reading. The US government has free publications describing them. http://www.edpubs.org/webstore/content/ItemDetails.asp?strItem=ED001950B&ed=&ern=ED458536&pubdt=&intCounter=8
Also, search "homeless youth" and reading while there for more info!

3. Call local Colleges of Education and see if they will send volunteers.

Thanks so much for helping these kids! Please email me if you have anymore questions, I am student teaching special ed. and work in a culturally deprived, very poor area.

Answer 5

Just start with the basics like you would with a younger child learning to read. Start with basic vowel and consonant sounds and little books with only a few words on each page. Repetition is key with children learning to read, no matter the age. Eventually you can work your way up to bigger books.

Answer 6

It's possible to invest a lot of time and money trying to find approaches to show your kids how to learn and boost their reading skills. Is hard to teach a small child how to learn, and also attractive them to read is challenging in itself. Nonetheless it does not need to be like that when you got the aid of this system https://tr.im/Ij4Zr , Children Learning Reading program.
With Children Learning Reading you can teach your child how to separate appears and separate phrases into phonemes, an important point when your kid is just learning to spell.
The studying system from Children Learning Reading program makes it simple for children to learn quickly and precisely, from simple words to phrases until they learn to learn stories.

Answer 7

I think it is important to find out what they are interested in and find related books for them to read! To teach them to read, you need to go over basic letters and sounds.

Do they know their letters? If the do that is a good start....

Answer 8

a social worker?good for you.well first of all, get a couple of interesting books that catches their eyes like get books of their interest?my english teacher always place emphasis on usage of a dictionary.so if they dont understand any word,write it down in a note book and search for the word in the dictionary later on.good way to improve english and will be able to widen their vocab bank hope it helped

Answer 9

The answer is finding a way to motivate them. Demonstrating that reading will allow them to gain knowledge in things that interest them should do the trick.

Answer 10

Use something they want to read- US weekly, etc.

Or try putting the captions on MTV.

Whatever you do, don't use Dr Suess or some little kid's books.

There are adult literacy programs, give one a call and see what they use.