Heidi Hyte, Curriculum Director at Reading Horizons, spends her time teaching literacy workshops in underserved countries throughout the world and tutoring struggling readers locally - plus she’s a successful blogger.

Recently Heidi posted a blog about her experiences tutoring a 60-year-old man who can’t read. Heidi reports that she has been... “working with this gentleman for several weeks now, and as of two weeks ago, he has begun to read… He read a short story for the first time...by himself. He wished that his long-time friend could've been there to hear him. Since that time, his spirits have been high, and his motivation is off the charts. He even suggests material and strategies he could work on at home independently in between our visits.”

To read the entire story and learn how you can start making a difference by tutoring, visit ESL Trail.

Heidi has included links to many free resources including teaching tips to help with pronunciation and spelling.

Thanks for being such a great example to us all Heidi!

Now, how do you plan to get involved in the battle against adult illiteracy?

Barbara Franklin is a respected proposal and grant writing expert in the education field. Recently while working on The Striving Readers Grant, Barbara posted My Mother Read to Me on her blog as a way to communicate her feelings about the literacy crisis in our country.

Franklin reflects that when she was growing up that, “illiteracy was a term that usually cropped up in social studies or geography lessons and it was always associated with underdeveloped countries. 'Senegal is a very poor country in western Africa where most of the people are unable to read, i.e. illiterate.' Up until I entered the field of education in the 80’s I never associated illiteracy with the adult population of the United States but now I do. And the problem seems to be growing.”

She goes on to say that, “A mother’s literacy level is one of the most significant predictors of a child’s future success in school. 70% of mothers receiving public assistance have literacy skills in the lowest two proficiency levels. Children of adults who participate in literacy programs improve their grades and test scores, improve their reading skills, and are less likely to drop out of school.” (Reder, 1996).

This is why Barbara spends her extra time volunteering at a local literacy program. She concludes with this touching quote by that great American the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.:

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.

Reading Horizons’ Curriculum Director, Heidi Hyte, travels the world promoting phonics instruction.

In the last year she has conducted trainings and needs assessments for NYC Public Schools and Public libraries. Additionally Heidi went to Doha, Qatar and Dubai plus she went back a second time to check in with the Rising Star school for children from leprosy colonies located in Chennai, India. Reading Horizons has donated $122,000 in reading software and resources to this wonderful organization.

I think you'll enjoy this documentary produced by Doug Jardine on the Rising Star Outreach mission and its school. We are proud to be associated with so many worthy programs and leaders throughout the world who are empowering others through literacy.

Most of us will not get the opportunity to travel the world to teach children to read but we can all do something. Read to a child today, volunteer at a school, or make a donation to your local school library.

What are your plans to change the world in 2012?

Over a lovely Christmas dinner, my brother-in-law (the veteran junior high school teacher) and I were discussing reading, writing, and spelling troubles when he casually mentions, “It’s hard to read some of the email messages that teachers in my school send out. My school principal is the worst offender. He misspells so many words!”

Hard to believe isn’t it? We have educators and teachers who either can’t (or don’t care to) write or spell correctly. We are entrusting teachers to lead by example – to give our children their very best in attitude, expertise, and yes… even correct spelling.

I just came across this article written by EzineArticles.com about spelling blunders; how timely.

The Top 5 Spelling Blunders

Loosing
Loosing is the number one, most prevailing spelling blunder! It often occurs when the author intended to use the present participle of the word lose, as in losing weight and mistakenly adds a second o. The root of this blunder stems from the confusion between the words: lose and loose.

Here's the difference: Lose means loss and loose means something is, or has been, released (or something not firmly held in place).

Example: Sam tightened his loose belt after losing weight.
Key: What do winning and losing have in common? Both have only two vowels (winning = ii, losing = oi).

Todays
Today can be defined as in the course of present time or this present time. The word today can be used as an adverb (qualifies or modifies an adjective) or a noun (person, place or thing). For the sake of brevity, we are going to concentrate on the noun: today.

Here's our issue with todays: it is a noun, sorely missing its good old friend the apostrophe. In order to form the possessive form of a singular noun, no matter what the last consonant is of the noun, you must always add an 's. To do otherwise, you will end up with the plural form of the noun (e.g. dog's vs. dogs, cat's vs. cats, etc.)

Example: John was featured in today's newspaper!
Key: If you state todays, you are essentially stating many present time, which would suggest a bend in the space-time continuum - present time overlapping present time... To fix this, simply add the apostrophe before the s: today's.

Everytime
Unless you are referring to the Britney Spears pop song "Everytime", every and time should be written as two separate words. The confusion often occurs when writers think about compound words, such as everywhere. Compound words take on a whole new meaning than if they were separated. For instance, everywhere (all places) = every (each, all, any) where (place or position).

Example: Every time you publish an article, your exposure increases.
Key: Everyone, everywhere, should add a space every time.

Aircrafts
Here's the deal with aircrafts: Whether it be singular or plural, the word aircraft is spelled the same way. Similar words include: moose, fish, and species.

Example: The aircraft are positioned on the carrier. Please watch your step when entering the aircraft.
Key: The pilot of the aircraft won't land when other aircraft are on the runway.
Alternately, this issue with aircrafts may be similar to our previously discussed issue of the possessive form: todays vs. today's. Example: Please watch your step when descending the aircraft's staircase.

Ect
No "ifs, ands, or buts," ect is not the correct abbreviation for et cetera. Et Cetera is a Latin expression meaning and so forth or and other things. Its correct abbreviation is etc.

Example: Writing supplies may include pens, pencils, paper, etc.
Key: Don't forget to pack eggplant, carrots, tomatoes, etc. in your lunch.

There you have it - the top 5 most common spelling blunders! Take these five words and post them next to your computer. Over the next week, make it a point to train your eyes to catch these errors in your articles. And who knows? You might find more!

This is a call to all educators, teachers, and parents - let’s help our children become better readers, spellers, and students by becoming better readers and spellers ourselves. It’s never too late to improve your spelling or reading skills. Learn more about Dysgraphia and Sequencing here>

Recently, Dr. Robin Lovrien Schwarz presented a very resourceful webinar for Reading Horizons on teaching emerging literacy to non-literate ELL students (with an emphasis on adult learners). Here are some of the questions and answers from the presentation:

What is the difference in the timeline of learning these skills between a kindergartener and an ELL adult?

We have no norms whatsoever for non-literate adult learners particularly those coming from a different language. It is very difficult to say what is normal. But don’t forget that a kindergarten child has already spent 6 years pursuing pre-reading training and has heard language and played with literacy based tools, such as books and toys with letters. It’s not comparable to compare a non-literate adult to a kindergarten child.

It was said that English readers start in the left corner and read down the page, has this changed with the prevalence of internet use?

No.

What are some of the significant differences between students from oral cultures and literate cultures who have not themselves participated in literacy?

There are two big differences between these groups. One is, a person from a literate culture knows that books and signs contain important information that is helpful to them. A person from an oral culture has no orientation to text whatsoever – so they aren’t even looking for information from text. The other thing is that people who come from oral cultures have a heightened sense of oral information.

How to differentiate whether a ELL student has a learning disability or if the student is just taking longer to learn the material?

It’s almost impossible to determine that and besides even if you did determine that you would still teach them in the same way – start with what they know and gradually build on that. You should rarely focus on learning disabilities when it comes to ELL students.

Does the age of the non-literate ELL learner affect their success in accomplishing literacy?

Probably… but there is little scientific data on this. We do know that age makes processing more difficult for older learners. But  I have worked with learners that are in their 70’s and 80’s that have had success. It is very individualized.

Where do you stand on teaching literacy through a student’s first language rather than English (their 2nd language)?

No question it’s easier to teach students that are literate in their first language, however, students that are not literate in their 1st language may not want to learn literacy in their 1st  language because it doesn’t offer them much value. Also many of these learners do not have a written language in their 1st language.

Click here to watch the entire webinar and to download the presentation slides! >