Case Study - Engaging Young People in Literacy

Deliver the Program

Teach the sequence of activities

The students initially selected individual categories to work through. However due to the irregular attendance of many participants this was abandoned and students are now selecting organisations from any category they choose. This is often dictated by availability of an appropriate interviewee, accessibility or simply mind frame and confidence of the student on a given day!

The initial interview script has been altered after a few test runs as it was decided that each organisation needed a slightly different set of questions and it was redesigned to allow for this.

We also decided to create a back up strategy for obtaining information from organisations that were uncooperative (often due to their own time restrictions) on the phone. The students resorted to simply asking for information to be faxed or mailed to our centre. This often required a few `reminder’ phone calls to the organisations.

Due to the difficulties the students have experienced in gathering information and the size of the task they have become at times disenchanted and frustrated with the project. During these periods the project is temporarily abandoned and time is taken to develop skills that have been evidenced as lacking during the execution of the project as well as those that underpin it.

This includes such things as:

Summarising texts
Vocabulary building
Spelling
Sentence structure
Computer literacy
Communication and games
Group interaction

Monitor learner’s progress

As this is a work in progress at the time of writing, the students were approximately half way through the project. Some students however, have been able to demonstrate competency in most areas at this point whilst others are still working towards it.

The repetitive nature of the project allows students multiple assessment opportunities. As well as enabling those students that have reached competency to continue to develop and build upon established skills.

We are just commencing the collection of student portfolios. The self assessment and decision making to include samples of the student’s contribution to the Resource Kit should give them some idea of their own progress and enhance self confidence.