Ahh the weaknesses of Arial font…

I run a small youth group for some boys in Redfern, Sydney. Each week we open the bible to read accompanied with a study. When we ask the children to read out the passage and do some basic comprehension, some of the boys can really struggle. Not only are they not understanding what they read, but they can get frustrated or embarrassed which makes them not want to participate (understandably). It’s not aways that bad, sometimes it’s really good and really encouraging. But we’re working with predominately unchurched youth, so as well as struggling with comprehension, they have no concept of certain biblical lingo and concepts. Eg. Tonight we looked at God being our Father, and some just could not get their heads around it. “What do you mean? God’s not my Dad? Dad’s my Dad! That’s stupid!!”

Has anyone ever done work like this before? Any tips? And links or books you know of? People to contact? Would appreciate some help.

Cheers

Geoff

Edit: Just to clarify, they aren’t illiterate, but their literacy levels are quite low. Some are not at the level of automatic word recognition which means understanding a sentence they are reading is close to impossible.

Hi Geoff

We understand!!!

Hear are some of our thoughts on the matter:

1. THROW the comprehension questions out the window!!

2. Pre arrange one person to practice reading read the passage from the Bible (you get to meet with them and help them read as well) and only give them a short section.

3. ask questions that mainly require opinion, application, issues...or let them just talk at intervals

4 TEACH the Bible - use lots of illustrations, a good story, visuals, U tube style!!! Tell them what God says - don’t expect them to work it all out.

5 Don’t expect them to work out the logic of a passage - you need to so you can teach it simply and let them talk and work off their comments to the passage. They may bring in bible stuff from anywhere and you need to work it in somehow.

6. Sometimes they think you are trying to trick them if using comprehension questions based on a passage!

7. It’s hard work and you really need to know your Bible super well to cope with all their questions!!! Its reverse psychology - they ask the questions you have to give the answers.

8. What a privilege- I’ll pray.

Di

I have found the Visual Bible useful. Currently only Matthew, John and Acts are available, but they are videos/DVDs word for word from the text with fairly good dramatisation. They can also be good for those who can read, especially when you are covering large chunks of text.

We need a range of resources for those who are illiterate or of low reading level.
I recently did the marriage preparation and a wedding for someone who could not read at all.
The written survey all needed to be done orally, with me filling it in for him.

Here’s a couple more suggestions:

1. Start with a fun activity to focus on the the key idea.
eg if you want to talk about God as Father maybe play ‘Celebrity Heads’ with famous fathers. By the way, God as father is a tough concept for kids who’ve had difficult experiences with being fathered, so that might complicate their responses!
2. Easiest Bible stuff to teach is where Jesus tells stories, so maybe start there.
3. CEV is the easiest Bible I know of to read. Just giving them the passage downloaded www.biblegateway.com rather than the whole book can make it easier too.
4. Rather than comprehension questions, if they can cope with the passage, give them a quest eg a lightbulb picture cue - find one bright idea here. Or a question mark cue - find one thing you don’t understand.
(this is John’s wife Bronwen replying on his account.)

I (barely) recall someone running a training night on this last century ... I think her name was Kath White, and I know she’d worked in Nepal. Can anyone help there?

One example she gave was to have the passage printed onto a few sheets, one for each major verse/sentence she was going to discuss. The relevant sentence was highlighted with a marker. No one was forced to take a sheet, volunteers were called for so readers self-selected. Each reader only had a line or two.

Thanks everyone for your input. I’ll be sure to take it on board. They’re a real tough bunch, it’s not just their literacy problems.

We’ve been running the group for over a year now, and we’ve gone from preaching, to discussion, toto studies to try and see what works, always changing. So far we’ve come up with nothing works EVERY week, and we have to keep changing things to keep it interesting.

Just trying to think outside the square a little bit.

Thanks again

In Christ

Geoff

Its helpful hearing and learning from you. Keep talking!!

A few more ideas that often work:

Invite them home - lots of home cooked meals go down well

Lots of one to one time

Sometimes they love to be ‘mothered’ and ‘fathered’ in a home context.
Engage help of couple with kids who are older

Take them camping. (some never have time away with family)

Di

Dianne Howard - 21 September 2007 03:52 PM

Its helpful hearing and learning from you. Keep talking!!


A few more ideas that often work:

Invite them home - lots of home cooked meals go down well

Lots of one to one time

Sometimes they love to be ‘mothered’ and ‘fathered’ in a home context.
Engage help of couple with kids who are older


Take them camping. (some never have time away with family)

Di

Unfortunately I can’t do some of these because of child protection issues. As they get older i imagine it will be a lot different. But it has been quite hard not to be able to hang out with them one on one, inviting them into my home and things like that, especially when they come looking for protection, and I have to say “Sorry, you can’t come in”. The closest I get to one on one is when my wife and I hang out with one of the kids. That is a great help.

Ohhh the amounts of children my wife and I wish we could take home with us! It can be quite depressing at times seeing what they go through.

The other issue is I’m not sure if ANY of the kids in the area are Christian, so enlisting the help of older youth can be difficult. It’s a shame too, because they really do look up to their elders.

It is amazing how tied we are to the printed word and to gettng others to read the printed word, when a majority of Christians throughout our 2000 year history have been dependent on others to read it to them.

When you do help those who have reading difficulties to struggle with reading for themselves, please use versions which are easier to read, such as the Good News Bible and New Living Translation or Contemporary English Version.

I have seen people tie themselves up in knots trying to read the NIV, which is supposed to be simple. And I’m not talking about reading begats or the saga of Mahershalhashbaz.

As a crowd control officer [which some people call high school music teaching], I was invovled for a while leading an ISCF group where the kids were supposed to be more literate than in many schools and where most of those attending were Christian kids who went to church and had done for years.

I was taken aback to see them struggling with the NIV, when it was the version read in their churches. It made a huge difference to buy a box of Good News Bibles. The difference was striking.

I know some of us have a soft spot for the ESV [and I’m not talking about a bog at the town recycling centre], and I really appreciate my ESV Reformation Study Bible, but it isn’t the version for the new reader.

We use the CEV with our kids.

Would it be heresy to use The Message?

There are some good aspects to The Message, but it is so American!
And I think it at times conveys the original sense well, and in Micah 1:10-16 gives you the flavour of the original better than most versions.

But I’d put it on the shelf with The Amplified Bible. [I almost quit bible study when Paul started bringing his expanded, enlarged, improved, augmented, inflated, bloated ....[snore!]

The Message can be very good at times, and even a better translation than most others, however often it doesn’t even attempt to be a translation and replaces sections entirely. Depending on what you’re looking at it could be a good or very bad choice.

Geoff Chambers - 21 September 2007 04:49 PM

We use the CEV with our kids.

Would it be heresy to use The Message?

Hi Geoff,

Your work with this group sounds great!

I dont think the Message will help struggling readers much,
because it generally uses more words in its paraphrases.

More written words are the last thing struggling readers want .....8-)

As some earlier posts have suggested, think aural and visual:

+ there are parts of a spoken CEV Bible here at Podbible;
it is done by Kiwis so it is almost local; 8-)
you just need an mp3 player/phone and external speakers;
depending on age, some of the young people may have a mobile phone or player that you can copy the passage onto for them to listen to later;

+ you or a helper may need to “become” the Bible for your group
and be the reader - just as many Christian group leaders were in the past;

+ use Visual Bible portions and sections of “Jesus video"-style material;

+ use the very strong story parts of the New Testament such as the parables, events in Jesus ministry, Acts of the Apostles;

+ you could sometimes try to role-play a few verses e.g. Luke 4:16-21
or Matthew 21:33-39

+ for handout material you may be able to find useful graphical material from Christian internet sites or clip art CDs;
you could combine this with a short passage from the CEV, which you set out clearly (that part is another post in itself).

Keep sowing seeds!

Grace & peace,

Terry

Why do you think the ‘Footy Show’ works for its particular audience?

What do you reckon are the key communicating skills on display?

Hi Geoff,

I think you have already been given a lot of great ideas but here is my 2c worth.

We struggle with a lot of the same issues - i.e. people who are not necessarily illiterate but have limited reading ability. There is a lot of useful information about how to teach these sort of people since most of the non-western world is like this. Of course you have the added complication of trying to teach teens ;-)

For these people it is not just a matter of not reading but having a preference for oral learning - they gain information through oral not literary methods.  Also they think & process information in different ways - i.e. concrete, practical, prefer stories & examples, rather than being analytical. There are a couple of really good articles on teaching in a book called “Internationalising Missionary Training” ed. W. Taylor. SMBC library has this & I think Moore would have it too. Check out the chapters by Bowen & Plueddemann. I have a lot more references but these 2 articles are a great place to start.

When we do Bible studies with working class people we print the passage or even just a couple of verses on a sheet rather than freaking them out by giving them the whole Bible which has too many words in tiny print! (We usually don’t pull out the big black books until people are asking for them). We also focus on questions that are practical and concrete rather than analytical. With oral learners it is often better to reverse the order of theory to practice (i.e. interpretation then application) and start with the practical 1st.

We also do a lot of Bible storying - i.e. start with narrative sections and speak it (or act it) as a narrative then discuss it. This is a major topic of discussion in world mission at the moment and there is heaps of useful stuff on this at http://www.chronologicalbiblestorying.com/

There is some good explanation here about why a lot of people are not ‘hearing’ the gospel because we use literary methods & they are oral learners. There is also a helpful ‘learning grid’ analysing how to teach people with differing literacy levels on the same page.

There is more but I think most has already been mentioned by others.

Phil

Thanks a bundle Phil.

Koori’s definately do seem to be an oral learning culture. I’ll look into that book you mentioned, as I’m sure it will be a valuble asset both for where we are now and in the future.

Cheers

Geoff