Bow Valley College has produced wonderful free literacy readers at seven different levels of increasing difficulty, A – G. There are 40 themed readers in all, covering a range of relevant topics and themes of high interest to immigrant learners. These readers are available in two formats: written and audio at https://globalaccess.bowvalleycollege.ca/esl-literacy-readers.
The folks at Bow Valley College have carefully considered text difficulty, vocabulary, and text structure at each level. Level A, the lowest level, includes readers with simple stories about food, clothing, and school . In this series, there is even a professional person who cuts hair! At this level, the readers have one picture per page with accompanying text on the opposite page. The language is simple and repetitive, and there is a word list page a the end of the reader. As texts get more complex and varied, there is an expansion of themes, with readers addressing visits to the doctor, transportation, friends, and the job search. At levels B and C, the readers still use photographs and one sentence text, although the sentences get more varied and complex. At levels D and E, the text is written in paragraph form, but there is still visual support for the one page story. At level G, students read a two page story – that still includes visual support – but that is written in authentic font, that is about four or five paragraphs long.
The Instructor Guide is also an extremely valuable resource for ideas on best practices for literacy students, and ideas on how to use the readers. What I loved about the guide was that the authors recognize the challenges that ESL literacy teachers face. They note that “ESL literacy instructors – almost without exception – have had to create their own materials or modify available materials significantly because of inappropriate font, cluttered pages of text, minimal white space, and the unfamiliar vocabulary found in low level native readers.”
One final note is that these PDFs are very easy to print! The creators give instructions on how to print the readers in booklet form.
I think you’ll thank – not blame – Canada for these resources!
