The basic skills of reading, writing, and performing simple mathematical operations are not adequate for the non-college bound high school graduates to be fully prepared to enter the job market. Businesses today require employees who can communicate effectively, solve complex and unanticipated problems, and exercise tact and judgment. If the…

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of participation in adult basic education on changes in selected non-cognitive attributes: anomia, self-concept, and internal-external control of environment. Two subsidiary problems were to examine the differences in levels of anomia, self-concept, and internal-external control of…

A seminar was held at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in August 1987 on the subject, "Illiteracy and the Underclass: Are They Permanent?" The contributions of Chall, Comer, Epstein, Dash, and Rivera identified where illiteracy problems begin--in families with intergenerational patterns of illiteracy. Problems in estimating the numbers of…

In order to help school-age English language learners (ELLs) develop the literacy competencies required for success at school, it is important to recognize and draw on the repertoires of literacy practices that students develop outside school. The concept of multiple literacies provides an analytic heuristic with which to consider the range of…

This report describes a program which grew out of a study that explored writing and literacy skills in Anglo, Black, and Hispanic high school students in North Philadelphia. Section One describes writing in the lives of adolescents as viewed within the home, community, noninstitutional, and broader sociopolitical settings. Particular emphasis is…

Family literacy programs must acknowledge the family as the primary place of learning, and developers of family literacy programs and curricula must focus on the family unit as a whole, building upon the cultural and knowledge capital of the entire family and acknowledging gender and age power relationships within the family. Educators must…

The late commissioner of education, James Allen, proclaimed the "Right to Read" as the educational target of the current decade. The object was to inculcate and improve reading skills among 25 percent of the American population who either lacked or were deficient in them. Has this goal been at least half-way attained? Midway through the…