[Dialogue] Literacy work with refugees and others

[Chagnon@comcast.net]

Sunny, and anyone else interested,
   I am putting in the mail for you a copy of my book,  "You, Yes YOU, Can Teach 
Someone to Read: A Step by Step How-To Book."  The Four-Level Reflection  (the name I prefer to horrid, I mean ORID, for the Art Form Method) is built into the fabric of the 
very first sessions, so as to begin to build a meaningful dialogue between the two Learning Partners (tutor and new reader) by focusing on the life and interests of the latter.    
   To teach phonics I use small alphabet strips to build sets of rhyming words, 
which also increases the new reader's vocabulary.  Each set can have its own file 
card or page in a small notebook, lists created during the tutoring session.  Alphabet strips, mindmaps, and planning charts are in the back of the book with permission to duplicate. 
   Anyone working with scripts like Arabic or Hebrew will appreciate my emphasis 
on starting with upper- rather than lowercase letters.  Once someone new to the written  
language (including our own children!!) knows the 11 uppercase that are identical to lowercase (COPS UVWXYZ) and the five that are similar (Ff  iI jJ kK  tT), they will have only 11 more lowercase letters to learn:  ab de gh lmn qr.  They can thus learn to read both upper- and lowercase much more quickly.  And since b d g q are among the last to be learned, the problem of reversals takes a big hit!  As Marshall McLuhan said, "Environments are invisible to those who are in them."  I don't know how teachers have missed that one all these years--myself included. 
  Anyone who also speaks the language of the Learning Partner can easily translate and adapt all of the simple yet detailed methods in my book.  My process has a built-in geometric progression of learning designed to turn learners into tutors, as some of my Rutgers students did during the eight years that I taught the Urban Literacy Practicum at Camden, NJ campus. I just tried to enter my website:  www.teachtwo.net   and for some reason I couldn't connect.  I will contact my webmaster, and by the time she gets to it, you may be ready to check it out.  Let me know if you still get nowhere.  The book is print-on-demand:   $3.50 (e-manuscript) or $10 through AuthorHouse, my publisher, and $12 if ordered through a bookseller. 
   The copy I am sending you is the pre-first edition with no picture, just a bland white cover.  I am in the process of changing the 2005 first edition cover (of a wonderful kid lying on his stomach on the grass reading) to a 2006 edition whose cover picture of a young adult will specifically state that the methods address youth, adults, and children.  Good luck with your work, and let me know how I can be of further help.
Fond regards,
Lucille Chagnon
on a warm day in Wilmington, De where snow had been predicted.