Hello Yvonne,

Although we did not use age to form the clusters,we see three age groups 
among the 10 clusters: Clusters 1 and 2 with an average age of 27.5; 
clusters 3-8, 30 to 34 years; clusters 9-10, 37 -41 years.
	
The younger learners in GED Clusters, 1 and 2 have made the decision to 
finish their education fairly soon after leaving high-school, so we can say 
that they are returning to school, not starting anew.  They come to adult 
ed with 10th or 11th grade educations, with some good reading skills, ready 
to 'finish up'. Their individual diagnostic profiles will pinpoint areas 
that need shoring up along with test taking skills. Vocabulary instruction, 
always a must for any group, should include words from the academic 
vocabulary list since many learners in these clusters will go on to post 
secondary vocational schools or community colleges. Download the list from: 
www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/research/ awl/download/awlfrequent.pdf

Many more of those in the middle clusters reported having had trouble 
learning to read from the beginning in the primary grades. their 
phonological abilities of distinguishing, isolating and blending sounds 
should be assessed. Teachers can use the assessment on the ARCS website to 
find those phonics elements that learners need to master.

Another age related factor is the amount of help learners received in K-12. 
The older learners in all clusters may not have had the advantage of 
Chapter One, special classes, or tutoring and remain at primary or low 
intermediate reading levels. Some of the 25 to 40 year olds who have 
phonological deficits may be curriculum casualties of embedded rather than 
systematic phonics programs that would have helped ameliorate their basic 
sound discrimination problems.

Also related to age and lack of supplementary reading services (or 
ineffective interventions) are the poor reading tactics that older learners 
use in order to read well enough to lead their adult lives.  It requires 
reeducation and repeated success with new skills that help undo  poor 
readers' unproductive word recognition and comprehension strategies.

The clusters are composed of learners with similar strengths and needs, age 
doesn't indicate the particular reading difficulty in any cluster, rather 
it is an indicator of the amount of reeducation that might be required to 
get them 'unstuck' and redirected.

Ros



--On Tuesday, May 23, 2006 3:40 PM -0400 john strucker 
<john_strucker at harvard.edu> wrote:


> Yvonne,

> I'll let Ros handle your first question about age.  I take a stab at your

> second question below.

>

> --On Monday, May 22, 2006 10:17 PM -0400 ylerew at aol.com wrote:

>

>> Here are a couple of initial questions about ARCS:

>>

>> 1.  Was the age of the adult students a factor?  Were older or younger

>> adults more commonly found in any cluster of reading skill?  What

>> implications might there be for practitioners working with older adults

>> versus younger adults?

>>

>> 2.  There was mention made that teachers perceived the Spanish literacy

>> skills of their students (native Spanish speakers) to be lower than

>> their actual skill level in Spanish.  Why do you think this disconnect

>> between perception and reality exists?

>

> I think it's pretty straightforward - most of the time we never test

> students' literacy abilities in their native languages, even though

> research tell us that for adults, native language literacy is very

> important for second language acquisition.  For Spanish, NL literacy is

> easy to assess using the Woodcock-Munoz, among other tests.  For other

> languages it's much harder.  My Harvard colleague Catherine Snow once

> suggested that the USDOE should assemble a bunch of computer-administered

> tests in the various languages spoken by most US ESOL students.  If the

> computer administered and scored the tests, we would know how well a

> person  reads, say Mandarin, without ever knowing a word of that language.

>

> The whole point of this is that if someone has relatively high literacy

> in  their native language, they might learn English more efficiently if

> it were  taught more like English as a Foreign Language (EFL) - making

> use the  students's pre-existing literacy and incipient English reading

> as tools for  second language learning.  Instead we tend to start

> everybody off with  survival-emphasis-oral.aural skills only ESOL. But

> this probably only  necessary as a dominant mode of instruction for folks

> with low native  language literacy.   This topic ought to set off a

> hornet's nest!!

>

>

> How could ESOL practice be

>> improved to capitalize on the native language reading skills?

>>

>> Thanks

>> Yvonne Lerew

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>

>

> John Strucker, EdD

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