This class is specifically designed to teach the rules of phonics, decoding, and spelling, and to provide age-appropriate materials for the instruction of adults.

Adults who struggle to read are in need of explicit and implicit instruction in the reading related processes.

There is not much research into struggling adult readers, however:

The handful of existing studies presents a picture of adults who often avoid reading (Smith, 2007) and struggle with many of the reading-related processes. Specifically, adults who struggle with their reading are known to have poor decoding, phonological, receptive vocabulary, fluency, naming speed, and reading comprehension skills (e.g., Greenberg, Ehri, & Perin, 1997; Kutner, Greenberg, & Baer, 2006; Sabatini, 2002; Winn, Skinner, Oliver, Hale, & Ziegler, 2006).

At Delgado Adult Education Program we aim to provide comprehensive literacy instruction specifically designed for adults.

In our Foundations of Reading class, instructors use the resources posted in this website to explicitly and implicitly teach:

• decoding

• phonological awareness

• rules of phonics

• academic vocabulary

• fluency

• naming speed (sight word recognition)

• reading comprehension

We hope that you find these resources useful!