Level 1
Develop your own texts from shared experience
The Language Experience Approach (LEA) is a fundamental method for supporting reading and overall literacy development with beginning learners. Although originally developed in the context of early childhood reading, the approach readily works for teens and adults. A shared experience (i.e. something done together or shared from memory) becomes the focus for reading and a variety of support activities such as vocabulary, phonics and grammar. The video explains and demonstrates LEA in the context of an academic preparation program with teenagers who are also learning English to enter secondary school. The two resources below from Bow Valley College demonstrate how to use the approach with very beginning readers in digital spaces.
Digital_Books_Presentation_with_book_template_attached.pdfThe slide presentation describes how to develop digital language experience stories with learners who are beginning to read. A template that you can use is included.
Copyrighted
Level - Beginner
Digital_Books_Presentation_Example_Sick.pdfThis is a completed example of a digital language experience story that accompanies the slide presentation from Bow Valley College.
Copyrighted
Level - Beginner
Workbooks from the BC Open Collection
The BC (British Columbia) Open Collection has several resources that we have included through our collection. All of their resources are free, open and modifiable. They appear in a variety of formats. Although the collection is primarily for postsecondary education, several literacy and foundational learning resources are included. BC Reads: Adult Literacy Fundamental English is a series of reading instruction workbooks. When you open the preview, you will be able to view and download a PDF version. We have also included a link to access other formats such as Pressbooks, XHTML and sometimes Word. Newly added to the adult literacy readers is an audio and video (text plus audio) playlist.
BC-Reads-Adult-Literacy-Fundamental-English-Reader-1-1585160337._print.pdfThe reader contains nine original stories about healing, discovery, survival, relationships, justice, and connections to the land explored through the lens of the plant world.
The online version contains audio recordings. Access all formats here. Access the audio and video playlist here.
License - CC BY 4.0
Level - Beginner to Grade 1.5
BC-Reads-Adult-Literacy-Fundamental-English-Reader-2-1446148075.pdfThis reader, written specifically for adults, contains eight chapters about Langston Hughes' family history and personal life. It includes excerpts from many of Hughes' poems.
The online version contains audio recordings. Access all formats here. Access the audio and video playlist here.
License - CC BY 4.0
Level - Grades 1.5 to 3
Story banks from the Minnesota Literacy Council and CrowdEd Learning
Although these reading passages were originally developed for ESL literacy learners, most can work as well with adults whose first or primary language is English.
pre-beginning_esl_story_bank.pdfThis is a comprehensive collection (121 pages) of reading passages, instructional activities and teaching guidance developed for ESL literacy learners. Stories are grouped by themes to support newcomer settlement such as housing, transportation and health. Phonics are taught using rhyming word families.
No formal licensing applied. Developers state the resource can be shared and modified.
Level - Pre-beginner
CrowdEd Learning has re-presented and enhanced the stories and activities on Wakelet for online learning. Pre-Beginning Wakelet collections include
the story in numbered sentence + paragraph form
Jamboard activities to practice sentence building, phonics, word families, and vocabulary using the Color Vowel® chart*
Flippity typing practice
beginning_esl_story_bank.pdfThis is a slightly more difficult collection of reading passages, instructional activities and teaching guidance developed for ESL literacy learners (43 pages) with a focus on more challenging word families and vocabulary.
No formal licensing applied. Developers state the resource can be shared and modified.
Level - Beginner
CrowdEd Learning has re-presented and enhanced the stories and activities on Wakelet for online learning. Beginning Wakelet collections include
the story in paragraph form
Jamboard activities to practice sentence building and vocabulary using the Color Vowel® chart*
Flippity typing practice
* Color Vowel® resources with a CC license appear on the Phonics and spelling page. These resources can be used to help you use the Jamboard activities with students.
Other resources
NWT-Literacy-Council-Five-Photostories-and-Activities.pdfPhotostories about life in the north
Five photo stories describe life and culture in Canada's north. Each story is accompanied by practice exercises and activities.
No copyright or CC licence. Permission granted to use without restrictions.
Level - Beginner to Grade 2
Reading Skills Stories
The Literacy Centre of Expertise "a hub for English literacy resources" has a variety of resources including some produced by the organization.
Reading Skills Stories were developed for adult learners. There are three different sets of stories available on their site. All resources can be downloaded from the site.
Phonics Stories are available in PDF and online interactive formats.
Interactive Foundational Stories are available in PDF.
The Kasi and Dami series has both teacher and student books.
Copyrighted. PDF files are available.
Level - Beginner
Online interactive modules
In addition to the above resources, The Literacy Centre of Expertise has also produced Five online interactive modules that can be accessed on their website.
Copyrighted. Online modules.
Level - Beginner
ESL literacy readers from Bow Valley College
40 ESL literacy readers can be accessed on the The School of Global Access at Bow Valley College website. Each reader is available as a PDF and online audio book. The PDF readers can be downloaded and printed. A clean and uncluttered learner page can be used to access the online versions with audio. An instructional guide with pre-reading and follow-up activities is also available.
Copyrighted. PDF and online versions available.
Levels - A-G relate to Canadian ESL literacy benchmarks foundation to CLB 4.
Changing Lanes: English as a second language reading series
Seven beginning level readers were produced for ESL literacy learners by the Halifax Immigrant Learning Centre. The complete series is available on Copian, a national resource repository that was defunded in 2015 but made available by CDEACF, the Centre de documentation sur l'éducation des adultes et la condition féminine with support from RESDAC, Réseau pour le développement de l'alphabétisme et des compétences.
Copyrighted. PDF version available.
Level - Beginner