What methods should be used in teaching non-literate adults to read in English?

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There are two main approaches to teaching reading. One approach begins be teaching letters, letter-sound correspondences, syllables, words, and eventually sentences. (This approach is sometimes called the phonic or linguistic approach.) The second begins with words and sentences and eventually breaks them down into syllables and then sounds and letters. (This is often called the word method or global method.) The approach advocated here is a combination of these two in which the teacher begins by teaching sight words and simultaneously teaches students to recognize the letters and to write them.

The main thrust of this approach is to take the material being taught in the oral language classes and to use it as reading material, first to be learned as sight words and later to be analyzed into letters and sounds. Meanwhile, in separate lessons, the students can also be learning the alphabet and can be practicing writing the letters. Also, students are taught "survival" reading skills including reading signs and reading application forms. Later, sight words which have already been learned as wholes can be used to develop basic phonic skills.