Overview
What is Target Skills?
The Target Skills suite of CD-ROM-based resources is one of the only products of its kind that has been devised specifically for the adult literacy and numeracy standards and core curricula, covering Entry 1 right up to Level 2.
It uniquely combines an ICT-based assessment against the standards with ICT material written specifically to help students develop skills, knowledge and understanding in literacy and numeracy, including some of the aspects of the adult literacy and numeracy standards and curriculum.
All of this can be managed through an online environment designed specifically with the curricula in mind.
Assessment
The Initial Assessment disc assesses learners against the standards and curricula in literacy and numeracy, and generates a profile which forms the basis for a learning plan. This plan can then be delivered through Target Skills and other materials.
Learning materials
The content discs provide specific packages of learning which address specific skills at the relevant level and sub-level (e.g. verbs at E3, percentages at L1). Each package of learning has three elements:
- Find out more – learning material that explains a new skill
- Try it out – a chance for learners to practise what they’ve learnt
- Check your skills – a short test that confirms learners’ learning.
Activities include animations, interactive slideshows, spreadsheet tables and charts, writing frames, number tools, word and sentence builders, games and self-tests. The discs also include a number of integrated tasks. These call for a combination of skills to be put into practice.
The activities are set in a variety of contexts: the workplace, leisure activities, citizenship, everyday life, and education.
Where can it be used?
Target Skills supports learners and their tutors in a wide range of adult education contexts, such as FE colleges, community and family programmes, training organisations, the workplace, and prisons. It can also be used in schools and sixth-form colleges at Key Stage 4 and beyond: the levels in the adult literacy and numeracy national standards correspond to the levels in the national qualification framework, and so the standards are broadly equivalent to levels in the national curriculum for schools. It is also a useful resource for ESOL learners.
How does Target Skills work?
Target Skills has been designed to work in two ways. You can use Target Skills by just working from the CD. This will provide you with all the learning material.
But Target Skills is most effectively used by connecting to the web as well. This gives you access to a range of additional learning material, and a management and administration system that will let you:
- track students’ progress and time on Target Skills
- save students’ work
- view and update individual students’ skill profiles
- prepare Action Packs customised to individual students and groups
- communicate through Target Skills with students, using the message boards and by sending notes to students’ Action Packs
- make your own materials
- collect data on usage.
Find out more
To find out more about Target Skills view the Guided tour
You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader software version 4.0 or higher to read it. If you don't have the software, you can download a copy free of charge from the Adobe site.
If you are visually impaired you can use Access Adobe to translate the file into readable format.
See the Products section for details about the individual CDs.
