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This booklet of information and accompanying reading selections are intended to help a tutor get started with a new adult learner. The booklet does not provide suggestions for teaching strategies, but rather discusses conducting the initial assessment of learners, observing the student reading, categorizing the students into one of three stages, and assessing students at the three stages of learning. The booklet contains a student interview form. An appendix describes how to determine readability levels of reading passages. Assessment sheets for each of the three stages of learning are attached. (RS)

This guide contains forms designed to help adult literacy programs in Manitoba to formulate their development plans for the next year. An introductory section discusses the purpose of the program evaluation that precedes the writing of the development plan. Section I focuses on writing the development plan after completion of all sections of the guide. It identifies the four main groups that should be consulted (program managers, practitioners, learners, and funders) and suggests the use of the following headings to provide a structure for writing out the development plan in a narrative form: funding needs, funding sources, organizing, teaching plan, staff development, support and advice, and specific needs and wants. Section II, the program managers' analysis, includes forms for recording information on organizing the funding. The organizing checklist covers the following items: publicity, type of program, student supports offered, program delivery, kinds of instruction offered, support received, training/staff development, paid instructors, and volunteers. The funding portion consists of a questionnaire concerning the availability/adequacy of heat, lighting, and space and various types of learning and teaching resources and equipment. Sample and blank budgets are attached. Section III is the practitioner analysis, which each tutor and instructor should fill out individually. It requests information regarding literacy needs and/or levels (initial assessment of students and materials), teaching activities used, lesson planning, and recordkeeping. Section IV is the learner analysis to be done orally with learners by someone other than the instructor. The evaluation covers time available, space, barriers to attending, and learning activities, including reading, writing and spelling, and curriculum. (YLB)

The Certificate in Literacy and Learning was developed by the Manitoba Literacy Office in response to requests from students in adult education programs who do not have specific goals, but would like some recognition of the progress they have made. Taking the certificate is purely optional and students should never be pressured to do so. This packet of materials consists of the student record of achievement and companion tutor manual for the certificate program, stages 1-2. For stage 1, the student record of achievement contains the five sections that comprise this program. Introductory material includes information on the processes of assessment and granting of a certificate. The five units that must be completed to earn a certificate cover the following: (1) reading everyday material; (2) reading graphical material for everyday purposes; (3) completing forms and preformatted documents; (4) communicating in writing; and (5) conversing with one other person. The student record of achievement for stage 2 contains seven sections; of which the first five are substantially the same as those for stage 1, but which are somewhat more advanced (instead of "everyday" material, section 1 calls for reading "textual" material) and which contain two additional sections, namely, conversing with more than one person; and extracting information from audiovisual material. Each unit or task is broken down into two to four elements. Component parts of each element are as follows: range, source, number of situations in which competence must be demonstrated, performance criteria, what help the student provided and date completed, and candidate's and tutor/instructor's signature. The tutor manuals for each stage provide a brief description of each unit and the following information for each element: range with examples, number of situations in which performance is to be assessed, and performance criteria. (YLB)

This language arts curriculum developed for Native American students in Manitoba (Canada) consists of a teachers' guide, a student guide, and a research unit. The curriculum includes reading selections and learning activities appropriate for the different reading levels of both upper elementary and secondary students. The purpose of the unit is for students to develop skills in brainstorming, biography writing, letter writing, note taking, researching, interviewing, spelling, and vocabulary. Reading selections focus on Elijah Harper, an Ojibway Cree Indian who helped defeat the Meech Lake Accord, an amendment to Canada's Constitution proposed in 1987. The Meech Lake Accord would have transferred power from the federal government to provincial governments and would have failed to take into account the interests of Natives, women, and minorities. The curriculum also includes reading selections on the creation of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry and on Crazy Horse. The guide includes directions for pre-reading activities, ideas for discussions, post-reading activities, and answers to student learning activities. Students work together using notes from class discussions to write a biography of Elijah Harper. Students are then required to write a biography on a Native person of their choice who has been recognized for making a contribution to Native culture. The guide also includes additional resources; information on interviewing, letter writing, brainstorming, biographies, and spelling; background information on the Meech Lake Accord and the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry; and additional ideas for classroom activities. The student activities guide includes comprehension questions for discussion or written response; vocabulary, grammar, and spelling exercises drawing on the content of the reading selections; and supplementary word search activities. The research unit, written for upper elementary and secondary students covers the following topics: how to research, choosing a topic, organizing research, making notes, finding reference materials, using guide words, using the card catalogue, using the encyclopedia, using periodicals, making a research diary, using a bibliography, organizing by subtopics, organizing by outlining, using tables and graphs, and reference review. Each topic includes student learning activities. (LP)

This packet of materials for the adult literacy volunteer contains a booklet of information and accompanying reading selections meant to help a tutor get started with a new learner. The booklet covers these topics: initial assessment of learners with sample student interview form; informal assessment with assessment questions; observing the student reading; descriptions of the stages of learning; and assessing learners at stages one, two, and three. An appendix addresses determining readability levels. A small packet of reading passages to be used to assess student reading is provided. The final component of this packet of materials is a series of aids for the tutor that include the following: suggestions for assessing learning levels; questions to elicit student background information; suggestions for getting to know the learner; the "look, cover, write, check" approach to learning words; steps in assisted reading; steps to spelling; steps in the language experience approach; and steps in language experience with stage two learners. (YLB)