AVKO's Research Director, Don McCabe will inservice the tutors and/or the trainers of the tutors of any adult or family literacy organization in the usage of AVKO techniques and materials that apply to their clientele.  For information about Don McCabe's background click on Experience Plus.  If you would like to see McCabe in action getting a young adult to read the word "malicious" in his first lesson, send for the free video.  For those organizations interested in involving the family members in the learning process, AVKO provides an inservice as well as free lesson plans for their training.  Family members can be of great assistance to a volunteer tutor.

Any literacy volunteer who visits the AVKO Foundation's Free Reading Clinic will receive free a minimum of $25.00 worth of new trade books.   AVKO's Bernice Webb Memorial Library housed at the Reading Clinic provides an extensive collection of books on the teaching of reading as well as an extensive collection of books for reading.

AVKO provides reference materials that should be available in any literacy organization's library, such as:

•  The Patterns of English Spelling, the only resource book that contains all the rimes (word families) and all the words within each rime.  It also has cross references to rimes that rhyme.  And it has the only list ever compiled of just the "insane" words of our language from was and does to hors d'oeuvres and lough.  Yes, it's an ough word that doesn't rhyme with the others.  As many Irish kids know this word as American kids know the word lake!

•  Word Families in Sentence Context, the only reading text ever devised to teach word families in the context of real sentences.  Although it uses drills to teach skills, adults find the sentences entertaining.  Because the sentences are written for adults, the beginning adult reader keeps his focus and learns decoding by onsets and rimes as well as by applying other skills in context of real sentences.

•  Individually Guided Keyboarding will not only help an adult acquire a useful tool, it will help the adult improve his spelling and reading skills.

•  Sequential Spelling 1 & 2 for Adults Only is highly recommended for adult literacy programs.

•  How to Develop Your Own Sequential Spelling Tests is recommended for those who want to individualize the sequential spelling for special students with dyslexia or specific learning disabilities.

• The Teaching of Reading & Spelling: a Continuum from Kindergarten through College.  The entire book, chapter by chapter, is available on the website.   Individual chapters make great handouts to trainers of volunteer tutors.

• Starting at Square One.  This is an E-book Free to AVKO members.  It will be available in regular book form in 2007. It is especially designed so that adult learners including those whose first language does not have our alphabet, can slowly and methodically learn to break our code.  The students learn to read and spell AS they learn the names of, sounds of, and how to write (and type) the letters of the alphabet.

If you have comments about this website or questions concerning spelling, phonics, learning disabilities, homeschooling, etc., you may always e-mail DonMcCabe@aol.com.  We appreciate any comments that will help us make this website even more useful. 

Call:  Toll Free 1-866-285-6612
Fax:  (810) 686-1101
E-mail: Webmaster: avkoemail@aol.com 
or  Write:  
Research Director

AVKO Educational Research Foundation
3084 Willard Road, Suite W
Birch Run, MI 48415-7801

All donations are greatly appreciated.  If you would like to support our mission which is to raise the level of literacy to the point where the words, illiteracy, phonemic awareness, learning disabilities, dysgraphia, family literacy, adult literacy, and illegible handwriting will no longer have relevance, please mail your tax-deductible check (in U.S. dollars) to The AVKO Foundation, 3084 Willard Road, Suite W, Birch Run, MI 48415-7801.  The AVKO Foundation is recognized by the IRS as a 501(C)3 publicly supported organization working with teachers, parents, tutors, and home schooling parents, publishing materials developed by its research, and providing free daily tutoring at its local reading clinic.