Jess Goumas: This session today is on using edtech to enhance evidence-based reading instruction. And so, without further ado, I will start the presentation portion. So my name is Jeff Goumas. I am from CrowdED Learning. CrowdED Learning is a nonprofit organization based here in Chicago, Illinois. And we focus entirely on free and open education resources and finding ways to make it easier for instructors to integrate them into their adult education classrooms.

And so a big part of that is just increasing awareness of the tools that are out there, which is going to be a big part of today's session, but then also understanding strategies for how to integrate them effectively. So when we look at what's been going on for the past three months, everyone's been clamoring to find things to use, things to be able to put students in so that they can be continuing education. And that's awesome. So great. Like, you've got them a Khan Academy account and they're in there. Or maybe you're even using Read Theory, which is one of the resources we'll talk about, and they're in there. And that's excellent. It's great that we are finding and actually using more of these tools with our learners. But now that we take a step back, we're three months in, we understand our comfort levels, we see what students are doing it's time to start thinking about, well, hey, this is a really good tool that maybe it was easier for me to learn how to use than I thought it would be. And maybe it was easier for my students to use than I thought it would be. So now let's start characterizing those resources in terms of, how could I fit this into my instruction, whether it's virtual-- which, we have no idea how long we're going to have to continue to be connecting with students only in a virtual environment-- or even when we get back to in-person. All of these tools are excellent tools that can drive your instruction regardless of your setting.

And the framework that we're going to use for that today is actually looking at how these tools fit within evidence-based reading instruction, which we will talk about momentarily in terms of what EBRI is. So first we'll do an overview of evidence-based reading instruction. And then we'll be diving into different resources based on the four components of evidence-based reading instruction, which includes vocabulary, alphabetics, comprehension, and fluency, so that we can just, again, characterize, this is a great resource for students building their fluency skills. Or, these are great resources for helping build vocabulary, or tools that we can use to embed the vocabulary from the reading so that students are getting interactive, engaging, mobile-friendly practice with vocabulary related to the readings that I'm assigning. And so as part of that, we'll be really looking to see, how can we design online reading experiences for our learners where we are providing opportunities for students to be both engaging with authentic reading and quality reading, but also, we are affording them the opportunity to practice all of these elements of evidence-based reading instruction. And then, hopefully, we'll have some time for follow ups.

Because, again, we're all teaching with new tools and new technologies, I always like to kick off just by saying, these are the tools that we're going to be using today. So obviously, most folks are using Zoom. A lot of you are using some sort of video conferencing software that allows you to be able to present in real time with your learners. Zoom is the tool that we're using today.

I'm going to be using Padlet as a collaborative tool for you to be able to share information about what you're currently doing as well as your ideas about, maybe, what you want to be doing based on some of the things that we talk about today. And I think Padlet is a great collaborative tool that's easy to use. And so I use that quite frequently, as well, because it gives people a consistent place to put their input and their feedback.

I'm not necessarily going to be using Google Classroom, but I am going to show, in many cases, a lot of these resources seamlessly integrate into Google Classroom in terms of being able to take something and assign it. So I'll make sure to mention that, because Google Classroom has become the-- I would say, the most popular home base, if you will, and/or learning management system that instructors are using to pull everything together for their students as they're teaching from a distance. And then, as I've already mentioned, we're using Wakelet, which I'll show in a second. And that is a tool just to help me organize all these resources for you and to give you a takeaway that you can use forever, because it's available to you.

So what Wakelet is is a-- it's a content curation tool for learners and for instructors. And it allows you to pull together different resources from different places. You can put images in there. You can put URLs in there. You can put YouTube videos in there-- all in one place. And then you can share that with students.

It's very flexible in terms of how you might want to use it. Initially, this tool was actually not developed as an education tool at all. It really was more of a curation tool for folks to-- say you were planning a trip with friends. You could have everyone be a collaborator on the Wakelet, and they can add links to the things that they want to do. And then you could even organize that into days. I have a Wakelet of winter recipes that, if I find something, I just plop it in there because it's easy to do. And then I have this thing that I can always go to. So it's really flexible in terms of how you use it.

And the way that I'm going to be using it with you today-- and again, the link is in there-- is basically providing you with everything that-- everything that you see here. So this Wakelet-- and I will share again. So this is a tool that actually allows me to-- I could assign a Wakelet in Google Classroom, if I wanted to, very seamlessly. So you've seen lots of tools, now, that allow you to assign directly from that resource into Google Classroom. I can tweet them. I can send them out by Remind. I can send them out by Facebook. I can share a QR code. So if you have a smartphone with you right now and you don't want to be hopping out of the Zoom you could literally hover your smartphone over this right now and scan it. And then it's going to bring you to that Wakelet.

And so Wakelet is really flexible in terms of how you share it with students. But it also provides me a way to pull all of the learning resources from today-- so I've actually done this webinar before, and there's already a recording out there of it. We're going to do some little tweaks today. But I've got a recording of this webinar from a previous time I've done it as well as a link to the slide deck, as well as a link to some resources that we offer. And then, also, we've got all the tools that we're talking about today. So we're going to be talking about fluency. We're going to be talking about vocabulary. We're going to be talking about comprehension. And all of those are in here. We've got the tools that I'm going to be talking about in this one place. So it's a comprehensive list of free resources all organized by the components of evidence-based reading instruction.

Within the Wakelet there's two links in there. There's the presentation slides. And there's a collaborative Padlet. And I'll be sharing out that Padlet link every time I'm asking you to do it. So here is the Padlet link. And again, there's a QR code for you to scan. So it's bit.ly/ebripad.

Again, when we're teaching in a virtual environment, obviously you all have probably experienced many times over that it's best to just use a few tools consistently. These are the tools that I use consistently. I don't have the benefit of being able to have a whole half-hour session of teaching you how to use it. But these are two tools that I recommend heavily because they afford us the ability to pull things together in one place. And with Padlet it affords you the ability, again, to collaborate.

So as you can see in Padlet, which is a tool many of you may already be using, when I go to share it there's a number of ways to do that. I can copy the link to my clipboard. And so I'll paste that here. And then that's a link that you can use. I can share it in Google Classroom. So once again, as a lead into to an assignment-- so if I had all your emails and you were my students this would be something that I would send out before this webinar. And I would assign it as an assignment that's due so that you've all done your contributions beforehand. And then when we get to class everyone's information is already on here.

But again, I can assign it by Google Classroom. And I can also assign it using a QR code. So again, if you have your phone handy, you could scan this QR code right now. And that is going to allow you to access the Padlet on your phone. And what this Padlet is for today's session is for you to just share out anything that you're already doing in reading around the four components of evidence-based reading instruction.

So I'm going to hop out of this share. So there's four components, which we're going to learn about in a second, of evidence-based reading instruction. And so for, say, vocabulary I could, say quizlet. And I'm just going to say-- whoops-- I create quzlets of my-- of the vocabulary-- stories, students, reading. And that's it. So now I've added that into this Padlet.

And again, as I said earlier, I'm using Google Classroom specifically because it's a nice home base and it allows-- or, I'm talking about Google Classroom, excuse me, because it's a home base. It allows you to communicate everything in one place. Lots of the resources, almost all of them, actually, that we're talking about today, you're going to see this little icon. And so what that means is you literally can just click on it and then assign it to your students. It's so seamless. And that is one of the reasons why Google Classroom has become really popular.

I also think it's a great tool because it integrates with Google Suite of products, which help you help your learners develop their digital skills. So even something as simple as a writing assignment or a summary of a story-- you can just have students create a Google Doc. And they'll be sharing that with you. And they're learning how to create a Google Doc. They're learning how to share that Google Doc with you.

Say it's something on sequence. You're teaching the skill sequence. The assignment can be, use-- create a Google Doc, and you're going to create a numbered list of the sequence. And so now they're learning text formatting skills. And so I like the simplicity of Google Classroom, but it really has the ability for you to do not just using technology but developing digital literacy skills because of that integration of their products. And as I said earlier, so many of the tools we're going to be talking about today seamlessly integrate into Google Classroom, which makes it easier to assign things.

As we start talking about all of these resources-- I said this earlier-- we've been just-- everyone's just been information gathering, and learning new tools, and maybe testing out these tools with learners and finding out where you're having successes. I want you to think about the tools that you're currently using. And I want you to think about the tools that you're going to learn about today and think about where they fall into an instructional sequence that can work regardless of if we're working remote or if we're working in person.

And so the graphic I'm showing you up here to-- right now is-- it's called a station rotation model. And it's one of the models of blended learning that is pretty popular. And that's because it allows teachers to build lessons around the idea that the entire lesson should not be me, the teacher, talking, you, the student, listening, and nothing else happening. So thinking about when you're designing lessons, my facilitation time-- that's really precious right now. You only get a few hours of that. So how can I maximize that? What resources and what things should I be doing with that time to really maximize the limited time that I have? So maybe it's not reading a story together unless you want students to be practicing read aloud, which obviously makes sense. But maybe the story can be sent to students ahead of time, or the reading assignment. And maybe there's questions in a Padlet, like we're working with right now, so that when we get to teacher-facilitated time there's a wealth of things that students have already thought about and contributed. And then that becomes a launchpad for the teacher-facilitated discussion around the story or the reading that you assigned.

But then, what are ways students can be working on their own? If you know, say, their Lexile level and you have access to leveled libraries that give them choice in terms of what they're reading, and that reading content is organized by Lexile, then there are resources that definitely fit more in the individual time, where students can be working on their own on reading that's at level. And so it's really about thinking about, how can we characterize these resources so that we're making just more options available for our learners?

So we're going to just really plow through the four elements of evidence-based reading instruction, which is EBRI. So I'll probably call it EBRI. But when I'm saying that, that means evidence-based reading instruction. And you might also hear me say open education resources, or OER.

And as I said earlier, CrowdED Learning is focused on free and open education resources. So all of the things that we're talking about today are free. And some of them are open. And I have a whole session on what OER means, because it is different than free. But just know, when I say them, they're sort of interchangeable.

But if something is open you actually have the ability to manipulate it and add in your own content and send it out and distribute it. You can put it on a website that anyone could use. But we're not going to get too into the weeds on that. But just know, when I'm talking about OER, it is open education resources. And again, all of the things that I talk about today are free.

So one of the things that's in your Wakelet, if-- we're not doing a deep dive into each of these components. But if you're unfamiliar with evidence-based reading instruction, on that Wakelet there's an entire professional development resource that is self-guided for you to be able to work through all of these topics. And they do dive even deeper than we will today into the notion of comprehension, what you should be doing, strategies for comprehension, strategies for fluency, strategies for vocabulary and grammar along with the resources that we're talking about. So I encourage you to check it out. It was actually done last fall as a LINCS event where we did two week topics where, for each of those topics I just showed, we explored effective resources. And then teachers talked about strategies that they would use for develop-- using those resources to develop those skills.

And the way this PD works is there's just a two-pager on reviewing the components of evidence-based reading instruction. There's videos that go with each of those. And then there's prompts that provide overviews of these resources, including some things that teachers have developed that give feedback on these various resources. So you can actually see how educators, adult educators, are using them. And you can see adult educator feedboo-- feedback, excuse me, on the tool, how they use it. Is it accessible? Is it engaging? Is it culturally appropriate? All of those things. For some of these resources we had teachers actually collaborate and provide that information. So you're getting real information from adult educators on the usability of these resources.

And then we also included opportunities for discussion questions. Now, obviously, if you're doing this by yourself that's not going to be helpful. However, within the guide-- so it's just one big document-- there's links to the LINCS-- hyperlinks to the LINCS discussion boards that we did. So you can see the conversation that teachers had around these discussions. You can contribute your own. And the nice thing about LINCS is, if you do add your own idea or your question within those discussion threads, everyone who's on the reading and writing community within LINCS is going to see that in their updates.

And so it's not just going into the atmosphere and no one's going to respond. People are going to see that you asked that question or you have that comment. And you'll likely get responses from other educators. So it's an ongoing community of practice, if you will, that you could leverage using this free, openly licensed professional development tool. But within that course and within this webinar today these are all of the resources that we went through. And so we are about to do that today around these different elements of evidence-based reading instruction.

So evidence-based reading instruction is a research-based model for reading. And if you are a WIOA-funded organization, which I'm guessing many of you are, one of the-- actually, there's two components within the 13 components that you must meet for being an eligible training provider through WIOA that focus on research-based literacy instruction. And so EBRI is the model that is promoted by OCTAE, which is the Office of Career, Adult, and Technical Education, through the STAR reading model. And so if you're familiar with the STAR reading model you're probably familiar-- you definitely are familiar with all of these components.

But why it is evidence based is-- it's basing it on research that states that direct and explicit instruction is the best way to teach reading. And the way that that direct and explicit instruction happens is through explanation of what's happening, through modeling of what good reading looks like-- so not just reading and answering questions, but when you read a passage together, modeling, I'm going to stop here. What did I just read? Why did the author say that in this way-- the sorts of questions that you and I, as proficient readers, do when we're engaging with text. Those are things that need to be modeled for students in order for them to become better readers. That it involves guided practice in terms of reading. And then lots and lots of application of reading.

And so when we look at the tools that you're probably using specifically, or if you're using publisher resources, there's some great reading programs out there for publishers. A lot of them have really good guided practice. And I'll actually say this out loud-- the first time I did this presentation was partnered with a publisher, because I recognized that there's actually not a lot of good free content that just walks through the concept of main idea and details, or walks through the concept of compare and contrast. Publisher resources do a really good job of that. They have nice, explicit lessons that provide guided practice in those areas.

But where they fall short is providing a lot of opportunity for application. So you have a book that's this thick. If you wanted five or six readings for each lesson the book would be about that thick. And so having these other tools that are free that allow us to provide more reading options for learners is one of the ways in which we can marry the tools that we're using-- maybe publisher resources, maybe not-- with some of these other free and open education resources that are going to provide more opportunity for practice and application.

And I just want to dissect these four components, because they are interrelated. So sometimes we think of them as these separate components, but they really do, in terms of thinking about what reading actually is-- they are highly interconnected. And so when we look at alphabetics and fluency, these are recognition-based skills. You are-- it's print based. And you are recognizing what it is you are reading.

And if we split it up a little more, on the left-hand side we're looking at recognizing words. So alphabetics is understanding word by word what you're reading, being able to decode each word and take the print and actually be able to read it and be able to say the word that is being represented in print. Whereas fluency is text-based recognition, meaning it's not individual words. It's a sequence of words and being able to recognize those words. So we get into concepts like chunking, where it's not just reading each word, but it's reading sets of words within a text and knowing when to make pauses, knowing how to do things like intonation and prosody and pronunciation as you are reading, and not as a word-by-word sequence.

And then when we get to the bottom half it's the same split, individual words versus full text. But now we're looking at meaning-based understandings. So vocabulary is actually understanding the words that I'm reading and knowing what the definition is and how it is used. And then comprehension is looking at understanding. And it's really where we're trying to go with any reading instruction-- having learners actually make sense of full text. And so that's-- these are the four components. But this is how they interconnect.

And just walking through them one by one, alphabetics we also consider phonics. And within our standards it tends to be the earlier levels because this is looking at decoding and phonemic awareness and being able to analyze a word and being able to actually recognize words. And so I will say, of all of the components, this is the one for which we are the most limited in terms of resources that are available to us, unfortunately.

When we're talking about fluency-- fluency, again, is being able to decode and read series of words and texts. So it's looking at things like accurate and automatic decoding, like not having to pause as you are reading to be able to decode that word, but being able to continuously read through. It's looking at actually reading out loud, and what is the prosody and the intonation that you're using? And it's looking at chunking text. So when a learner is not just reading-- even if they're reading fluently in terms of being able to string those words together and not pause, if they are actually using proper inflection and proper chunking, that is reflective of their comprehension of the word, because the intonation that they're using is a reflection of the actual comprehension of the various words and what they mean.

When we get back down to the bottom how-- half, now, excuse me, into the meaning-based components, vocabulary-- you all know what that is. It's understanding the meanings of words. Within our standards, within adult ed, there's a big focus, obviously, especially as we move into a heavier focus on informational text, to be able to understand tier 2 words, or academic vocabulary.

So the resources that we'll look at today focus specifically on those tier 2 academic words that might not be so immediately evident in terms of the meaning. Like dog, window, wall, lamp-- we can point to those things. But they have a not-so-inherent meaning that has to be explained to learners. And again, that explicit instruction is needed for things like academic vocabulary, because you can't put a picture of summarize. That's a hard one to make a connection through an image. It has to be explained. And so that's why the focus is on tier 2 words.

And then comprehension-- again, it's where we're looking to go with any reading instruction. And this is not only being able to read and answer questions but being able to connect to the text personally and make personal meaning out of it, to self-monitor as you are reading and make sense as you're going, to understand the structure of the text and why it's presented in that way. And ultimately, most importantly, being able to summarize and make sense of what it is you have read and why it's important and why it's important to you, why it's important for others to read.

So now we're going to get to the fun stuff. And we are going to dive into free and open resources that align to each of these components. I'm not going to go back into slide mode because I'm going to be hopping out into these resources. But within the college and career readiness standards-- and I know California has their own standards, as well. But within the CCRS, levels A and B of the reading standards are the only ones that address alphabetics. So once you get beyond level B, which is aligned to second, third-grade level it moves on. And so the reading standards within the CCRS do not actually include alphabetics.

So IXL is a tool that isn't free, but I-- entirely. You can do one lesson a day, is from what I can tell. But when I ask the question of, what are you using? I do hear a lot of teachers who use IXL. And it's not just an alphabetics or phonics tool.

It's actually got multiple subject areas, as you can see here. They have math lessons. They have science, social studies, Spanish. They have Common Core alignments, which we're actually looking at right now. So there's tons of learning content in here. And I think you have to be a member. I don't think it's that expensive. However, what you can do is at least you can do one per day lesson within here.

One of the things I like about just the way it's organized-- now if you scan down we're going to see there is a ton of different lessons on different concepts. And so that's nice. But what's also nice is, when I hover over any of them it provides me with a nice little preview of what the lesson is going to look at. So this one is short I or long I in matching and pictures. So let's go to that just so you can see what these lessons look like.

And so-- and it is more practice. So it's really more designed to see if students can or cannot do whichever skill is being shown. But it's got full audio.

Speaker 1: Which word matches the picture? Fill.

Jess Goumas: And it does have that guide, because I might not even know what this is-- I might not know the English word. But I've heard it now. And so I can select the answer and submit.

So each one of these has 10 questions. And I work through them. So--

Speaker 1: Sit.

Jess Goumas: It's a pretty simple format. But these-- again, this one per day is free. And this is mobile friendly. So if you were to assign this link to students, they could do this one activity that day. And they could actually operate it on their mobile device, which is also another thing that I'm heavily focused on with the resources that I share because of the fact that we know that more learners can only access online content through-- or their primary mode of access of online content is through mobile device.

Learning Chocolate is another tool that's actually a vocabulary learning tool. And we'll look at that in a second. But I know that this is very widely used throughout a number of community-based organizations here in the Chicagoland area, particularly with ESL students. So it is a language-learning platform. And as you can see here, there's a bunch of different topics. And for each of these topics there's a bunch of different vocabulary sets.

What I've done is focused specifically on those sets that deal with alphabetic and phonics. And so I can go to any one of these-- we'll go to this one-- and open it up. Now, one of the things that you may notice is that there's lots of pop-up ads, which can be really annoying on here, and distracting for students.

But what I've seen-- and I like that they have this. But I've seen students do this the second they get into Learning Chocolate-- they click on this little icon right here. And it's going to expand it so that we're in full-screen mode. So now we're in full-screen mode. All those ads are out of the way, which is great. And now I have the content.

So one of the things I really like about Learning Chocolate is it has a consistent sequence of activities for every single vocabulary set. And we'll walk through those right now. So the first one, just the opening screen, is just literally all of the words that are part of the set and then icons that you can click.

Speaker 1: Pull. Full. Pawn. Fawn. Pin. Fin.

Jess Goumas: And then even on these vocab-- or, excuse me, these phonics ones they have the sound.

Speaker 1: Fff. Puh.

Jess Goumas: Then I work through these activities. And so the first match-up is no pictures but just hearing and-- so listening and reading. So I'm going to hear--

Speaker 1: Fawn.

Jess Goumas: And then I need to read to find where I match it.

Speaker 1: Pawn. Pawn.

Jess Goumas: And I work through this.

Speaker 1: Fin.

Jess Goumas: Where is fin? There we go.

Speaker 1: Fin.

Jess Goumas: And then I can check my answers at the end. And it's-- obviously, those are wrong because I didn't do them. But it's going to let me know which ones were correct or incorrect. I can redo these as many times as I want.

The second match-up, then, is not listening, but it's just recognizing the word, the actual image, and pairing it. So this is going to be a little trickier because some of these have some sort of social context that someone might not know. This might not have been the best example. But this is focused on reading the word, and not the actual phonics sound, and connecting it with each of the images. So you might say, don't do match-up 2 for this one, or challenge yourself with it. Now, this one's getting back to the sound.

Speaker 1: Paint. Paint. Pull. Pull. Peel. Peel.

Jess Goumas: And so it's, again, listening and then matching it to the image. So we don't-- there's no reading involved in that. This is the one I just did, sorry.

And then we have a fill-in activity. So this one, they really need to know the words, because obviously they're just-- there's no word bank. And so I will caution you on that, that it doesn't have a word bank, but hopefully you're having them really engaged with the words for quite some time. Again, we can check the answers.

And then the final one is a dictation. And so this is--

Speaker 1: Pull.

Jess Goumas: --hearing the word and then typing it--

Speaker 1: Pig.

Jess Goumas: --in the box. And again, all of these have this check answer capability. And so students can work through these. And again, it's the same sequence-- those activity formats are the same every single time for every single one of these word sets.

And just again, this is actually a language learning platform. So the thing that I've linked in the Wakelet and in the presentation here is to the ones that are specifically on phonics and alphabet, which is obviously what we're talking about. But there's lots of great topics in here that students can use to learn different words. And so again, for each of these categories there's a number of different word sets that students would work through. And again, it's the same sequence of activities each time through those word sets.

So alphabetics is, as I said, very limited in terms of the number of resources that we have and are using. But these are two that I know that are widely used by adult educators. So hopefully you find one or both of them helpful.

Now we're going to move into fluency. And so fluency is, again, looking at students being able to read a sequence of words. So it's print-based recognition of entire texts. And so I want you to think, as you're learning about these resources, how could these resources be used to develop fluency?

So let me actually hop into here real quick. One of the things that's really important about fluency is knowing the level of your students in terms of what is an appropriate level of text complexity. So this is actually part of the standards. Reading Anchor Standard 10 defines for us, from the college and career readiness standards, what grade level band students are at. And within that-- and this would be CCRS level B, level C, level D, and level E, which is adult secondary-- these are the appropriate levels. And the one that we tend to use and a lot of reading programs have done alignments to-- sorry-- is to this Lexile framework here.

Now, if you don't know your students' Lexile levels because right now you're not having necessarily the ability to pre-test them or place them, one of the tools that I'm going to show you later actually has a diagnostic test at the start of it where students do read a sequence of readings. And then they are placed at a Lexile level that's appropriate for them. So be on the lookout for that, because I know that's been something that's come up, is because of our limited ability to onboard students, just understanding their level can be challenging. And so one of the comprehension tools that I share with you I want you to pay attention, because it can be used to diagnose and identify what Lexile level is appropriate. And the reason I bring this up here is, students are not going to read fluently or be able to really develop their fluency skills if we're putting them in texts that are beyond the complexity of what's appropriate for them at their particular level.

So the resource that I'm going to share with you today on fluency-- and it's one of my favorite resources-- is called Reading Skills for Today's Adults. And it was developed by an adult ed center in Southwest Minnesota years back. And it's got 16 different levels of reading that increase in level of text complexity based on Lexile and ATOS scores, which is another measure of readability. And it is designed specifically for adult learners.

So the topics of readings are things like money, and work, and parenting, and safety, and nutrition, and health. So they're adult-specific topics. But it is designed for early, early levels, so levels like CCRS levels A, B, C. And there's some D.

There's no level E in there because, again, the focus of it is for these earlier levels, which-- I come from a publishing background. I used to be head of product development for Mcgraw-Hill Education and adult education. And one of things we always would get was, we need more low-level readings that are appropriate for adults. I'm showing you something that has 300-- exactly 348 stories that are designed for those early-level readers.

One thing that might also be of interest to you is their-- Southwest Minnesota ABE also developed a reading skills for health care worries-- workers, excuse me-- program that is also for its more middle level. However, all of the readings within this curriculum are readings that are within health care contexts. So it's a reading program designed for students who are interested in health care careers. And it provides stories in a similar format to what we're going to look at right now that are all within the context of health care and health settings, which is nice.

Now, some of you may be familiar with Reading Skills for Today's Adults, because this is another one that, in the gathering of "what do you use" that I constantly do with adult educators, a lot of teachers have mentioned using Reading Skills for Today's Adults. It's been around for a while. And there's an old site-- some of us-- some people actually also refer to it as Marshall Adult Education because that's the adult ed center that developed it. And they have a site that's an older site, but has lots of great resources.

But if you Google Reading Skills for Today's Adults, this is the link you're going to get. I don't know why they still have it up. I keep nudging them to take it down, because it is confusing, because if people Google Reading Skills for Today's Adults, this is the link they get. The URL for the updated site, which has really good supplements that we're going to look at it in a second, is ReadingSkills4Today.com. And we're going to go to that now.

So this is the setup. There's 16 levels. And I'm going to go to one of the earlier levels-- or the earliest level, actually-- level 1. And again, if you remember, I said-- work, safety, calling in sick, workplace, health, obese life, health, being stressed out, parenting. So all of these are, again, adult contexts.

So if I go to, say, "Joe's Workday" here, here is the story. And the reason that I bucketed this under fluency is this truly is designed to help students build their fluency skills. That was the original intent. So for every single one of these stories what you'll see is a line word count. And so at this point, at the start of the line, there's zero words. If you to this point you've read 13 words. If you finish this line you've read 24, 25, 26, so on and so forth.

So they have this timer. And this timer allows you to click. And once you click it's going to start kicking in. And students could read. So if the student wanted to practice their speed and get a sense of how many words per minute they can read, here is the timer. Here is the text. When they get to a certain point they can just count the word count. And that's going to give them a rough estimate of their words per minute.

Now, fluency is not just about the speed. That's actually just one part of it. But it obviously is important, particularly in test taking situations where students do have to read at some level of speed in order to make their way through all of the content of the test. But it really is more about the pronunciation and the intonation and the prosody.

So for every single one of these readings there are three recordings. And each one of these recordings is at-- as you'll see, this one's longer than this one, which is longer than this one. And that's because there's modeling that's happening in the audio. So I'm going to click on this first reading.

Speaker 2: Level 1. Joe's children go to school. Joe goes to work. He leaves for work.

Jess Goumas: So if you can hear that, probably just a little bit, that is reading almost at a decoding level. So she was reading word by word. So it's really helping the students in decoding each of the individual words within the passage. When we get to the second reading what's added in is the phrasal chunking that a fluent reader has. So--

Speaker 2: --goes to work. He leaves for work at 7:30 AM. He gets to work at 7:50 AM.

Jess Goumas: So you'll see, there's those appropriate pauses at the various points that one should pause based on what they are reading. So it's modeling that. Again, remember, evidence-based reading instruction, explicit modeling is really important. And then the third reading, which I won't get into, but you'll see it's about 20 seconds faster-- and that's because the narrator is now reading it with full intonation, full prosody, and all of the elements that a fluent reader would use as they are reading.

So every single one of the reading-- readings, excuse me, has those three recordings. And you'll see there's a number of resources that go along with it. I'm going to download this. I should have done it before I started showing the site.

But you'll see there's PDFs that have pre-questions and post-questions. And those existed on the original site. And then there's also the story PDF. So all of these are downloadable, which is nice. So you can download the story if you're not working in an environment where students have access. But then that supplement that I just clicked and downloaded-- I'm going to open it up for you because this is, to me, an amazing addition to this program. And it makes it more than just a fluency program.

So what you'll see here is they have the vocabulary from the lesson. And then there's an activity that goes with it. So here is a closed paragraph that is having students put the vocabulary within it. Here's a fill in the blank activity now that is using those same words, but in different sentences. So these aren't sentences from the passage. But now they're related in terms of the content, and students are plugging in the words in a fill in the blank activity.

Then there's a language activity. So it's looking at the simple present verb tense. And it's using words that are from the passage. And again, the sentences within here are contextualized to the passage. And we're focusing on a specific language skill now.

Then they have students write one or two sentences using verbs from the word box here. So they're practicing writing sentences that use the simple-- makes sure I say this correctly-- the-- what were we doing? Yeah, simple present verb tense.

And then they're speaking activities that use words and just use the context of the story with sentence stems to help learners start their response to each of these questions. So it's comprehension where students are speaking the answers, and it's providing stems for them in terms of what they're going to say. Then there's a comprehension assessment that's multiple choice for the reading. Then there's two options for writing activities that include sentence frames to help students structure their writing related to what they're going to write in response to the passage.

So it's chock full of activities that literally is covering almost all of your bases. We don't get into alphabetics in here, but we're getting vocabulary, we're getting fluency, and we're getting comprehension just with this one resource. And students have choice.

Now, one of the things that I'm trying to work with them is to convert these supplements to Google Docs so that you can seamlessly assign it in Google Classroom. And that way that they would have not only this supplement where you're downloading it, but teachers could actually have it in their Google Classroom. And my recommendation to them has been to also add the link to the story so literally you can assign this and then students could actually answer the questions with the Docs.

But you could do that, as well. It's an openly-licensed resource, which you can see here we asked them to do so that you can take these stories and adjust them as you see fit for your students. And you could adjust the supplement. If you didn't want to do all of those activities, you'd have the ability to do so.

So really, really, really love Reading Skills for Today's Adults. And I'm actually going to share with you something that we're doing a CrowdED Learning as part of a new professional development offering that we have that's free that helps teachers learn how to use new tech tools. And we're going to use those stories as the basis for developing learning resources using those tech tools from Reading Skills for Today's Adults.

But I didn't want to stop just with the resource that has the content. There's tools that we can be using that allow students to practice fluency even if we're not with them. So everyone who has a smartphone-- the base apps, if you're using an Apple phone, there's a Voice Notes recorder. And Android devices have an Audio Recorder. So you can teach learners how to use those recording tools and then have them practice recording themselves reading.

And maybe it's just for themselves, so that they can be reading, recording, and then playing back what they've read to hear themselves read. But both of these tools also have the ability for students to share that either by a text, or by email, or-- well, those are the two main ways. So they could be submitting their audio recordings to you so that you could hear them. You could also obviously have them read aloud in a Zoom. And again, when we're face to face you can just have them read aloud in front of you. But even absent of those, for students, if they want to hear themselves read and compare it, say, to the audio from the recordings that we just listened to, they often, if they have a smartphone, they have tools at their disposal that allow them to record and then hear themselves.

And then there's also tools like Google Translate and Otter, which is a-- these are speech-to-text tools that allow students to read something and-- into a device, and it's going to translate their words into text. And the reason that those are important is because of the fact that these tools, if they are pronouncing the words correctly, if they're speaking with proper intonation, it's going to do a better job of translating it. And so we're using Google Slides right now. And Google Slides-- and actually, I've got to move my little bar here. One thing you might not know is Google Slides has closed captioning.

So as I'm talking right now you're going to see on your screen, the words that I'm saying are appearing as closed captions. So this is a technology that's available in Google Slides. It's available in Google Docs. And again, for a student to be practicing their fluency, if they start the closed captioning on a Google Slide or closed-- or, excuse me, voice typing on a Google Doc, which I'll show you in a second, they can be speaking and reading what they're seeing.