At the core of the Route 66 content is a primer-sized book, roughly 16 pages about a topic of interest to the adolescent and adult learner. A book on Tiger Woods might have pages with a single short sentence paired with an image: “Tiger wears red,” or “Tiger pumps his fist.” In addition to the main sentence and photo, a small teacher icon leads to instructions for the volunteer teacher on how to teach reading.

Because adolescent and adult students with and without disabilities learn most effectively when reading materials contain content relevant to their interests, Route 66 Literacy incorporates high-interest, age-appropriate reading content — both text and graphics. The content of Route 66 is based on high-interest pictures from Flicker.com, under Creative Commons licenses that permit these uses.

Creating High-Interest Content for Your Program

The content of the book, as well as the teaching instructions, are written by the Route 66 team, supervised by the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies. The topics are selected based upon the needs of the specific target market and the structure of the text itself is written to reflect the range of text types and the range of difficulty associated with early reading progress. Specific editorial effort is focused on insuring that all of the books have the lowest possible readability without sacrificing meaning. When difficult words are used, they are taught directly or supported through the picture on the page. The resulting books are predictable, easy to read, and engaging for adolescent and adult learners at the beginning levels of conventional reading.

The design of any Route 66 content offering is based upon a comprehensive approach to early literacy instruction that includes systematic instruction in the following areas:

• Comprehension
• Phonics
• Fluency
• Writing

Within each unit, there is a common lesson structure:

• Guided reading of books written at the preprimer and primer level.
• Repeated reading of books written at the preprimer and primer level.
• Word study lessons including making words and compare-contrast
• Writing lessons that include writing a postcard and book review.

The core content of Route 66 Literacy reflects high interest, popular culture topics, but the Route 66 engine was also designed to allow the content developers at the CLDS to develop content that addresses the unique needs of learners in diverse settings. The reading and writing instruction provided in Route 66 Literacy can be delivered through content that addresses topics in a school system’s or state’s standard course of studies.

Content can be developed for Route 66 that addresses the employment and workplace literacy goals of your adult education center or the self-advocacy and community access of your private foundation. We can work with you to identify topics and content that addresses the needs of the group of learners you support. From this research, we’ll create a version of Route 66 that meets their needs. For more information on these focused implementations of Route 66, contact Lisa Friendly, Product Manager.