Perhaps you only have one tutor to train. You will find that you can adapt much of the material for one-to-one training situations. When adapting, be sure to engage in the discussions as you would if you had a larger group. The discussions are designed to find out what tutors know. They also help you to determine how much to modify and adapt your further training.
A sample training schedule and two sample agendas follow this introduction. We’ve included them to give you some ideas on planning your own training sessions. You might want to begin training tutors using the units that relate to all learners, such as Adults as Learners (Unit 2) and Planning for Learning (Unit 4).
We suggest that after this general training, if at all possible, you match your tutors with learners before having tutors attend further training. Then tutors can attend training related to the specific needs of the learners with whom they are working. If tutors have actual learners to think about as they go though the training, they can apply their new knowledge to their own learners. Offering the training in this way provides a frame of reference for your tutors and therefore can help them remember what they’ve learned.
You may want to use many of the units, sections or activities for ongoing training with your tutors. You can also use the units as a refresher for more experienced tutors. In this way, you can tailor your sessions to best fit the needs of your tutors.
Encourage your tutors to attend the training sessions. You may find that some want to attend because tutoring or literacy is a new field for them and they want to learn all they can. Others, more experienced or knowledgeable, should also attend. As well as continuing to learn themselves, they can perhaps provide some knowledge and experience for less experienced tutors to draw on.
We have not included a tutor handbook with this manual. Rather, we propose that you provide your tutors with a binder in which they can place the handouts and notes from the training they attend, thus creating their own handbooks.
A few years ago, using masculine pronouns to indicate both men and women was appropriate. These days, to avoid doing that, writers often use gender-neutral plural pronouns even to refer to single individuals. We didn’t like either option and because we fully understand that literacy programs include male and female coordinators, tutors and learners, we have chosen to use both male and female pronouns interchangeably throughout the manual.