ACQ Vol 11 no 2 2009

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116 ACQ Volume 11, Number 2 2009 ACQuiring knowledge in speech, language and hearing
Literacy
My top 10 resources
Adult literacy
Karen Smith-Lock
birthday cards and notes. We need to be able to assess this.
For normative data for the Cinderella story, readers are
referred to:
• Smith-Lock, K.M., Mortensen, L., & Nickels, L. (In press).
Story writing skills of adults with a history language-
impairment. Reading and Writing.
• Mortensen, L., Smith-Lock, K.M., & Nickels, L. (In press).
Text structure and patterns of cohesion in narrative texts
written by adults with a history of language impairment.
Reading and Writing.
Both are available online from Online First, www.
4 Rosner Test of Auditory Analysis
Rosner, J. (1979). Test of auditory analysis (TAAS). In Helping
children overcome learning difficulties: A step-by-step guide
for parents and teachers (pp. 77–80). New York: Academic
Therapy;
This test itself might not be particularly useful for diagnosis in
adults, as there are 13 items, and the norms only to go year
3, but it uses a great technique: the say XY, now say it again,
but don’t say X technique. I find this extremely useful in
helping clients identify the sounds in words, particularly the
vowel. I often ask a client, as a first strategy in spelling a
word, to identify the vowel (then I ask if it’s short or long,
then I ask them the ways they know to spell short and long
vowels). The task of identifying the vowel is often difficult.
Clients are usually successful after I ask them to
progressively remove sounds. For example, for pit, I would
say “Say pit.” [pit]. “Now say it again, but don’t say p.” [it].
“Now say it again, but don’t say t.” [i]. “There’s the vowel,
ready to be spelled!”
5 Duplo (Lego) blocks
While these may be considered childish, it all depends on how
you present them. These aren’t for playing with, they are for
representing sounds. I use them to help my clients segment
words into their component sounds, and to identify
consonants and vowels. I use different colours for vowels
and consonants to highlight the vowel/consonant structure
of the syllable. This is important for figuring out the vowel
sound (i.e., VC means vowel is short [e.g., at], CV or VCe
means that the vowel is long [e.g., me, ate]). We move one
block for each sound of the word, while saying the word aloud.
We can also add and remove blocks, as we manipulate
words by adding and removing sounds.
6 COKO Phonic Learning Bricks: lower
case, vowel sounds, digraphs
These Phonic Learning Bricks are like Duplo blocks, but with
letters on them. They can be used on their own, or in
conjunction with the plain coloured Duplo blocks to map
letters to sounds. I only use ones that have one block related
to one sound (or in the lower case set, the blocks are half
the size of the Duplo, so, for example, the t and h can stack
on one Duplo block for th). This is important to reinforce the
relationship between sounds and letters. Even with adults,
I work as a clinician in private practice in Perth, WA
and as a researcher at Macquarie Centre for Cognitive
Science (MACCS) at Macquarie University. Both my research
and clinical practice focus on developmental oral and written
language impairments in children and adults. My top 10
resources for adult literacy are very similar to those I would
use for childhood literacy, as the same information generally
needs to be covered, usually with the same techniques. It’s
really just a twist in presentation and a respectful
consideration of what the adult brings to the learning task.
1 Gallistel-Ellis Test of Coding Skills
This is my favourite test! It does not provide age or grade-
based norms; it simply tests a person’s ability to read and
spell single words of various spelling patterns. Especially with
adults, the assessment question is not if they have a
problem (they come to us saying that they do), but what is
their problem? This test is an excellent tool for identifying
exactly what a person understands about the writing system
and what he/she doesn’t. It is a great basis for planning
treatment. It covers: 1) closed syllables, both with single
consonants and consonant combinations; 2) vowel-r
syllables; 3) silent-e syllable words and multisyllabic words;
4) words with simple endings, such as s, ed , ing, and y; 5)
words with soft c and g, tch and dge; 6) words with cle and
common suffixes (tion , ture) as endings. The test is available
from Montage Press;
2 Megawords Assessment of Decoding
and Encoding Skills: A Criterion-
Referenced Test
This test complements the Gallistel-Ellis Test of Coding Skills
by looking at multisyllabic words in detail – so often a
problem in older children and adults. Finally there is
something that breaks down the factors involved in reading
and writing multisyllabic words! This test identifies specific
skills that have been learned and those that have not. Skills
tested include: syllable division of two-syllable words;
common prefixes and suffixes, schwa sound, vowel
variations, consonant variations, unaccented vowels, and
assimilated prefixes, all in multisyllabic words. Available from:
Educators Publishing Service;
3 Cinderella story and/or cookie theft
picture
Both the Cinderella story and the cookie theft picture are
very useful for collecting a writing sample, so critical with
adult clients. Often, these clients perform adequately on
basic tasks, but tell us they are having difficulty. A writing
sample can flush out spelling problems and grammatical
difficulties (e.g., morphological errors, reduced complexity in
syntax, tense shifting, vague pronominal reference), and can
also show text organisation, cohesion and narrative
structure. In addition, connected text is a very functional
task. Many adults with reading and writing difficulties are very
worried about their ability to write even casual things like
Karen
Smith-Lock