I'm Frustrated Because I Can't Read Well Enough to Do My Job

Description of learner:
Sherry is a 38-year old Caucasian woman. She is a high school graduate who came to the adult, education learning center for reading and life-skills writing improvement. Her major goal is to improve in spelling to better assist her husband in his towing business. Her job is to take messages from customers and quickly communicate the information to her husband who is usually on the road responding to customers. She scored at the 5th grade level in reading comprehension the TABE (Tests of Adult Basic Education: CTB/McGraw-Hill) on entry to the learning center.

Challenge Faced:
Sherry says she is unable to write the customers' names and street addresses correctly. She is highly frustrated and often on the verge of tears, because she feels that she is hurting rather than helping her husband succeed in his new business; she is too embarrassed to ask a customer how to spell the name of a street. Because she needs immediate and intense instruction, I requested a volunteer tutor to meet with her twice weekly.

What We Did:
Fortunately, I found a suitable, volunteer tutor who could meet with Sherry twice weekly. I supplied her with a map of the area. I asked Sherry to bring customer and street names she has experienced trouble spelling. The tutor guided Sherry in locating the addresses on the map, and Sherry copied these street names several times in a notebook that she could keep near the phone. At subsequent sessions, Sherry added at least five new streets to the list, and copied them several times in her notebook. They selected streets were near her husband's business, and continued with this process for several weeks, returning to review the list at each session. The tutor also stressed to Sherry that it was common practice to ask someone how to spell his or her name; this should not be a source of embarrassment.

Analysis:
Sherry needed instruction in phonics, decoding, and other basic reading skills, but her immediate needs superseded this. Working on a limited list of street names in order to familiarize herself with their spellings gave Sherry a boost in self-confidence. However, if Sherry continues with her tutor, a future goal might be to engage in basic skills for decoding written language.

What I learned:
Because Sherry needed a "quick fix," I realized that we could not start at the beginning of the reading and writing process. Although this process would have benefited her more in the end, she not only needed to see immediate results, she also needed confidence in her ability to learn.

Sherry, Group Discussion:

What would you consider to be beginning reading and writing skills?
I think of beginning reading and writing instruction as phonemic awareness, phonics and decoding skills of words in meaningful context.

Are you sure Sherry would have benefited more if you had begun with beginning reading and writing skills?
As a long range goal, beginning reading and writing skills would have been useful for Sherry. However, since her immediate and more pressing goal was to work on writing street names correctly, I believe she may have become discouraged if we had started with basic phonics and decoding.

Could you have added a phonics component to the street names?
Yes, this is an excellent idea. Although street names do not always follow regular spelling patterns, her tutor could have carefully chosen certain words to encourage Sherry to see patterns and sounds in the reading process.

Given her obvious stress, did her husband contribute to that or was he supportive?
Sherry's husband was sincerely supportive of her efforts throughout her work in our program. He came with her to the initial testing and interview session, and Sherry often told her tutor how proud he was of her efforts and progress.

I noticed that the tutor told Sherry not to be embarrassed to ask someone how to spell his or her name? Why was this important to Sherry?
Our students don't always realize that even teachers will probably ask for help when they do not know the answer to a question. It was important for Sherry to understand that asking questions is not a sign of inadequacy, but is an important part of the learning process for students and teachers alike.

Summary:

Director's Comments:

Sherry came to the learning center with a specific need and I believe you did not address the exact nature of that need at first. She was not asking for map skills or reading instruction; she wanted to feel better about how to answer business related phone calls. Two approaches may specifically address her needs. The first is to give her practice in asking customers to spell the street and surnames. To begin, the tutor could speak or tape-record street and surnames. Sherry's task would be to identify the first letter. She could then be taught to say, "Is that spelled with an 'm'?" Generally, when this type question is asked, a customer will say yes and then spell the entire name. By having this question prompt, Sherry could begin to build confidence in asking customers to spell names for her.

The second strategy is to teach Sherry to find street names quickly in the map index. There is no need for her to learn how to spell street names, since spelling is a serious difficulty for her. If asking is a problem with some customers, she could quickly look for it in the index. Thus, your observation that Sherry needs instruction in phonics could be combined with her immediate need to spell street names to form a reasonable approach for reaching her goal. She could construct an alphabetized pocket-sized notebook where she could write the names of streets within the towing zone of her husband's business. It could be far more productive to use materials such as this to address the spelling issue than attempting to teach her to spell so many names.

The main lesson to be learned from Sherry's case is that the first approach considered may not be the most effective. Rather than stick with it, closely monitor and modify as needed. In this case, immediate progress is the goal.