Although federal legislation requires parent involvement in the development of Individualized Education Programs, parents often lack adequate background knowledge to partner with school personnel in the development of programs for their child. In an effort to provide all stakeholders with information pertaining to the education of children with…

After reiterating the findings of an earlier examination of job literacy, this paper discusses the results of a job literacy survey involving interviews with 107 individuals representing 100 occupations ranging from short-order cooks and assembly-line workers to lawyers and corporation vice-presidents. Other aspects of the research findings…

In a response to the Mikulecky and Diehl examination of work-related literacy, this paper points out the need for data based on ethnographic approaches to research and more realistic assessments of text difficulty. Also suggested are questions to which future research might respond: How much of functional literacy is really functional competency?…

The purpose of this book is to introduce the research on readability, defined here as reading ease. The first part of the book covers how people read. A series of national literacy surveys show that the average person in the U.S. and most other countries are adults of limited reading skills. For example, the average adult in the U.S. reads at the…

Early in the 20th century, educators began looking for scientific methods for matching texts with readers. Some of the best minds in education dedicated themselves to this task, including Edward L. Thorndike, William S. Gray, Ralph Tyler, Edgar Dale, Irving Lorge, and Jeanne S. Chall. The purpose of this book is to bring students of reading into…

This edition is an annotated list of 390 literacy materials for adult new readers. All the materials are written on an eighth-grade level or below. These paperback instructional titles, many in workbook format, are for use with adult basic education (ABE) and English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students. The introduction includes guidelines for…

A study was conducted to identify the literacy requirements of 10 college vocational training programs and their corresponding occupations. Following a review of 5 years of student records at an eastern Ontario community college, the 10 major vocational programs studied were categorized as follows: motor vehicle mechanic, engineering technician,…