I teach basic English classes and occasionally have students who literally cannot read or write. These students have difficulty doing even basic assignments because they can't read/understand the directions. Of course I always read the directions and do examples with the class but only five weeks to cover course requirements and twenty plus other students to monitor as well, I feel like there is little, if any, chance for these students to succeed. Does anyone else encounter this situation? What are your strategies for helping these students?

I noticed that one of the strategies mentioned for managing angry students was agreeing to reassess their work (if that is what they are angry about). In the past, this has been a last resort for me as I found it both rewards anger and is unfair to the other students in the class. I am hoping someone can further explain how this an effective strategy and what positive implementation of it looks like.