Teaching Reading to Adults

If you know how to read, then it certainly means that you have the basic tools needed in teaching reading to adults. It is never impossible to run into an adult who may not know how to read because they were never taught or they were never given the chance to learn how to read, probably due to poverty or other reasons.

The method of teaching someone how to read is very similar to the way you were taught to read. And if you were taught like many children over the world, then you have most likely been taught using phonics. This is the manner of teaching students how to read by introducing sounds used in spoken English in order to form words. Examples of these phonics would be “an” “at” or “ap”. By knowing individual phonics, one learns how to use them in sequence when reading a word.

If you were taught with this method, it is better if you teach using this on someone else too. Generally, children and adults can be taught in the same way except for certain factors that you might need to consider. Two things would be (1) confidence issues inherent in some illiterate adults and (2) the present knowledge that these adults would probably already have. The former can be overcome by instilling trust between you and your student through expressing your own confidence that your student can learn. The latter, on the other hand, might be an advantage or disadvantage on your part. There might be some things about reading that illiterate adults already know which might be right or wrong, which you have to confirm and correct accordingly.

As for the rest of the methods, such as flash cards, pictures, reading materials and homework, are similar, so you won’t have much problems in the logistical aspect of teaching reading to adults.