Document literacy reading (also called life skills reading) ultimately means: reading for information that helps the reader perform a task in real life. Examples include; charts, tables, maps, graphs, signs, ads, product labels, price tags, diagrams, and directions. In this blog post, I’ll talk you through some practical activities that will help you to incorporate this into your classroom!
Document literacy reading is particularly difficult for non-native speakers of English for several reasons:
- The concept of looking for answers to a specific question (rather than reading from beginning to end) may be a new experience
- The reading formats might be peculiar to a specific culture
- The documents may have specialized vocabulary words, phrases, or abbreviations that are unfamiliar to those from another culture
Because many tests are based on document literacy reading, it’s really important that we teach skills that help learners to extract information from documents. We must also teach the skills that are required for successful test-taking. Below are some tips for teaching those skills!
Tips for teaching document literacy
Tip #1
As a pre-reading activity, activate the learner’s prior knowledge and/or experiences. For example, before interpreting a classroom inventory list, ask students if they know what an inventory is and examples of inventories done in their own countries.
Book 1, Unit 2, p.28
Before interpreting a chart from the U.S. Census Bureau, begin by writing the word “census” on the board and asking learners what they know about this word and their experience with this.
Book 4, Unit 3, p.42
Tip #2
Guide students to understand the schema – general organization – of how the key information is presented. For example, on a TV schedule, guide learners where to find the channels (on the left), where to find the times (across the top), and how to know if a program is one or two hours.
Book 1, Unit 10, p.32
In a bar graph on the effects that employee stress has on workplace conditions, ask students to identify what information is on the side of the graph. Also ask them what the percentages represent on the bottom of the graph.
Book 4, Unit 4, p.54
Learners can’t answer questions if they aren’t familiar with the format in which the information is presented.
Tip #3
Teach key vocabulary items that students need in order to understand the display. Build the skills of scanning and predicting the meaning of words in context. So this by asking students to circle key words. For example, ask them to interpret an application for a marriage license. Ask your students to find the words ‘bride’, ‘groom’, ‘previous marriage’, and ‘ceremony’. Then, try to guess what these words mean.
Book 2, Unit 6, p.80
Similarly, in reading a medicine label, learners need to know the words ‘warning’, ‘drowsiness’, and ‘keep out of reach’ before they can interpret the important information on the label.
Book 2, Unit 4, p.54
Tips for taking tests
Even after learning the schema of life skill displays and key vocabulary, learners may not do well on a multiple choice tests (unless they use a variety of test taking strategies).
Tip #1
Guide the learner to look first at the question to identify the key word(s) and then scan the display to find those key words. For example, if the document is a chart about hotel information and the question is about the ‘rate for a standard room’, ask your students to scan the display to find the words ‘room rates’.
Book 3, Unit 10, p.132
Tip #2
Provide practice with different types of multiple choice questions. Several different types of questions may be asked about the same display.
Book 3, Unit 8, p.106
- Find one piece of information on the display, e.g. “ Which occupation will have the largest percent increase in growth from 2006-2016?”
- Compare several pieces of information on a display, e.g. “What is not true about the jobs in the chart?” Guide learners in pulling information from different parts of a display to arrive at the correct answer.
- Infer what may be true, e.g. “Why is the buyer using this form?” (Book 4, Unit 7, p.94). Give learners practice in choosing an answer that is based on evidence in the display, but not stated explicitly.
- Choose an answer (a,b,c,or d) that could be, “ all of the above” or “none of the above”. Model the practice of checking the truth of each possible answer (a,b,c,or d) with the information in the display. When correcting test items with learners, an effective strategy is to ask learners to highlight the key words in the question and display that helped them find the answer or ask learners to explain how they arrived at the answer.
Tip #3
Eliminate answers that are wrong to find the one that may be correct. It is important to model this process of elimination for the learners so that they can apply this strategy on their own. Finally, learners should be encouraged to guess on most multiple choice tests if they do not know the answer at all.
So, in summary, document literacy displays are full of specialized vocabulary that’s particular to one culture. We must therefore not only teach the content, but also specific strategies for interpreting life skill displays and taking life skill reading tests. The stakes are high, since funding in many adult education programs is based on learners’ performance on these tests.
I look forward to hearing about other tips you have for developing these skills as well as to your experience with trying out the tips I’ve presented here!