ADULT BASIC LITERACY NEWS
October 2016

Links:

Tutor education & events
Registration is now required. Please click here to register for all opportunities.

Professional Development Opportunities:

TAWL/LC Literacy Conference
Creating Spaces for Literacy: Learners' Reading & Writing Connections
Saturday, November 6 from 8 am-3 pm

Scroll down for more information.

Wordless Books to Improve Comprehension
Learn more about the richness of wordless books and how they can be utilized with your students. 
Monday, October 24 from 10-11:30 am

One-to-one Coaching
Get the just in time support you need for working with your student! Coaching can happen in your tutoring session or individually. Email Cydne or Nancy to arrange a time.
Now Hiring!
Literacy Connects is now hiring!

We are looking for excellent candidates to fill two positions:
  • Reading Seed Program Coordinator
  • Literacy Infusion Project Manager
Read and share both job announcements on our website.
Open House & SALE!
Open House and Sale event!
 
Saturday, Oct 8
9:30 am
(enter through the blue door on the south building)

Wear your blue Literacy Connects lanyard to be recognized as part of this event. Literacy Connects volunteers will have a special tour of the facility and 1/2 price discount off all materials that day! Stay and shop! 
New Resource
The Change Agent: An Adult Education Magazine for Social Justice

New issue on transportation. Email Edie for log in and password for this edition as well as the archives and audio files of articles! Encourage your students to write for the next issue! The theme is "When we fight, we win!" Submissions due November 4.
Get out the Vote!
Things you can do with your students to encourage civic participation this fall!
"We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit." 
--e. e. cummings

Sometimes I forget that I know anything special, anything different from what others know. One day this last summer, I had a chance to just sit and talk with a colleague here. We hadn't worked together for very long, and we certainly hadn't yet worked very closely on anything related to reading or instruction. It started out as a rather mundane conversation about leveling and reading assessments; but, geek that I am , I started talking about miscues and cuing systems and how reading works. At one point, I realized that I had gone on for probably too long, and I apologized. "No," she said. "Tell me more." So I did. "This is really important stuff. I'm so glad to learn about this. I wish everyone got to hear you speak about something that you have studied so passionately."

Tell me more. It's the truest expression of deep listening. I understood at that moment that she was deeply engaged, that she valued what I knew and was sharing, and that I did indeed have something unique to offer.

One of our Adult Basic Literacy staff had the opportunity to substitute teach in the Reading & Understanding class this week. They were working on a really difficult and complex wordless book. As they read the pictures, the students shared what they were seeing and created the story together. One student pointed at a picture and made an inference that the man was writing a letter to send overseas to his family. She knew he had left his family and was traveling to a new land. The other students and tutors, though, recognized that the man was getting his passport stamped. The tutor gently asked, "Tell me more about the picture. What caused you to say that?"

"See the paper he's using? And the stamps on it? It's like that thin paper you use for writing letters to people in other countries. And there's a typewriter back there, too, see?"

Tell me more. With just this invitation, not only was the student valued in her knowledge and ability to use evidence from the text to back her thinking, the tutors were also able to recognize a gap in her knowledge-passports, with which she had no prior experience.

My older daughter was working, rather reluctantly, on her physics lab report last week. I had offered to type it for her, but I couldn't quite understand her conclusion. She needed an example from her daily life as an extension. She had something about the car at the red light, but it wasn't very clear. "Tell me more about acceleration," I said, and started to draw out the story. "Um hmm, um hmm...tell me more." As she went, she worked it out, and I started typing furiously.

Tell me more. It says, "I believe you have it within you. I believe it's worth listening to. I believe you know more than you think you do!"

For more ideas on using these simple words to monitor your learners' comprehension and to break down barriers, see the Choice Literacy blog.

Keep listening,

~ Edie
Director, Basic Literacy Programs
(520) 882-8006 x 203
Fall Literacy Conference!
Sat. Nov. 5, 2016
Creating Spaces for Literacy: Learners' Reading & Writing Connections

Literacy Connects and Tucson TAWL are once again co-hosting the Fall Literacy Conference. The theme this year is the Reading/Writing Connection. Our featured keynote speaker is Dr. Rick Meyer from the University of New Mexico. His keynote is titled "Where do those connections begin and end? Reading, Writing and Life as We Know It."

Check out the conference website for:
  • Conference information: date, time, location
  • Break out session topics and presenters
  • Keynote speaker bio and highlights
  • Save the Date flyer to share
Register online or by mail. Literacy Connects volunteers receive the member rate! Conference registration also includes continental breakfast and lunch. 
Save the Date!
Thurs. Oct. 20, 2016

Literacy Connects Get Connected Fundraising Event
TCC Copper Ballroom
Free parking!
Invite others ... share the flyer!
Register onlinetoday!

Double your Tax Credit!
Put your tax dollars to work, 
right here in Tucson!



Literacy Connects is a qualifying charitable organization that can benefit from your tax dollars! The maximum credit was recently doubled, meaning that more of your money can go to the cause(s) you hold dear.

Talk to your tax professional today!