Our learners’ goals are just as diverse as they are, but they all have something in common. They want to make their life better, and they came to us for help achieving that goal. If you have only volunteered for one program or have only tutored a few learners, it might be a good opportunity to expand your knowledge about some of the different facets of Washtenaw Literacy. Billie Bahr has been a volunteer with Washtenaw Literacy for almost 25 years and has recently been working with us part-time as a Program Coordinator. Here are some resources from our vast Resource Library that she wanted to highlight for our tutors. Check them out and see how they might help you!
The first resource is a chart explaining the five aspects of adult developmental needs. Though this is only a basic chart on one page, it is a great place to start developing lesson plans and streamlining goals for your learners. The five categories are Basic Skills, Self-Advocacy, Critical Content, Social Skills, and Learning Strategies. All of these can be applied to both Basic Literacy and ESL tutoring settings, depending on the needs of the learner. By reviewing these needs and keeping them in your mind as you work with your learner, you might find it opening up more opportunities for conversation starters, what sorts of worksheets and practice to bring to sessions, or whatever best suits your needs. Read more about Adult Developmental Needs here.
Next up is a self-paced training module about the GED, or General Educational Development. For many of our learners, having an equivalent to a high school diploma is a major need, especially if they are trying to find a new job or improve their own skills to advance where they are. While Washtenaw Literacy has Prep 100, a special program in collaboration with Washtenaw Community College, that helps prepare learners to take the GED tests in the future, you may have a learner who cannot attend the program or has already made some progress on their own. By going through this training module, you can familiarize yourself with how a learner can take a test, where they need to go, how much it will cost them, see examples questions, and get tips on what kind of tutoring lessons will help them prepare across the different subjects. Click here to review the self-paced module.
The final resource we are highlighting today is the Manual for Essential Skills For Internet Use. Provided by the TR Leger Adult Literacy program from Ontario, Canada, this manual is a straight-forward document that explains many of the basics of modern digital literacy. While some of the images and references are a little dated and some of the information is directed to a Canadian audience, the information is solid and does a great job explaining a lot of elements of digital literacy that we as tutors may take for granted. One of the major benefits of this resources is that, unlike a lot of other digital literacy resources, it is all contained in one document. This makes the manual easy to navigate and it is possible to even print out a copy if your learner would prefer to keep it on hand. If you are a tutor at one of our digital literacy sessions, this also might help you fill in some gaps in your knowledge, too! Click here to view the manual.
We hope you enjoy these highlighted resources! If there are certain types of resources that you are looking for as a tutor, let a staff member of Washtenaw Literacy know and you may see it in one of our upcoming monthly posts!