The exercises in this website
are chosen to reinforce and supplement each basic life-skills unit and basic grammar unit learned in ESL beginning literacy
classes. The website is appropriate for beginning level ESL literacy students, scoring
between 180 and 200 on the CASAS (Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment Systems). The exercises are mostly collected from royalty-free sites that help students learn skills tested
on Level A CASAS tests.
The Preliteracy page is designed for ESL students who usually score between 150 and 179 on the beginning literacy 27R
or 28R CASAS tests. They may have
no formal education or limited schooling from their native countries due to the following reasons: their first language is
not written or has recently been written, or poverty, war, and other socioeconomic and socio-political factors have prevented
schooling opportunities. The preliteracy page is also initially beneficial
for ESL students who are literate in their first language but have no knowledge of English at all. Most of the exercises there
involve listening and reinforcing vocabulary learned in class. To learn more about how to help adult preliterate ESL
learners, read the Tutor Curriculum Guide for Adult ESL Preliterate Learners. You can find this curriculum guide on this website, http://www.coabe.org/html/resourcerepository.html
and click the link to it.
For each web page, initially students need instruction on how to
click the mouse, and where to click to go to the next question or exercise. Click the mouse link below to teach students how to use the mouse. They also need to know how to click the Back/Forward
arrow when moving from one window to another, or to click the X to close windows when needed.
Also, students need a lot of instruction with exercises that require typing. For students who do not have any experience with
typing, initially it is best not to have them work on exercises that require typing. Once students have mastered
these skills, they will be able to continue on their own.
The exercises are arranged according to difficulty. For the most part, they become
increasingly challenging from top to bottom. Most exercises allow students time to learn the information as they work their
way through the pages.
There are also exercises in this website that are appropriate for the
more advanced literacy learners, indicated as High Beginner, and literacy students who learn at a faster pace. These can also be used for
review by higher level students.
The author hopes that you will enjoy using this website with your students as much as she enjoyed creating it.
It is the author's intent that this website become more helpful, useful, and relevant for the students.
Please feel free to email
cbrekke@iel.spokane.edu for any comments and suggestions regarding this website.
Thank you,
Cielito Brekke
