Describes a study of long-term unemployed adults in central Scotland who were informally interviewed to allow for more complete exploration of circumstances which prevented them from obtaining educational assistance. The difficulties of ascertaining their educational needs and the implications for adult education delivery systems are discussed.…

Presents guidelines to help literacy educators adopt the organic primer approach that has been found to be effective in helping adults learn to read. (HOD)

Explores the underrepresentation of older adults in basic education programs by examining survey research of current adult basic education outreach programs to older learners in Texas and through interviews of older illiterate adults receiving adult basic education instruction. (JOW)

Proposes a comprehensive curriculum plan that views reading as a continuing process. (FL)

A literacy program incorporating adult learning principles was designed using functional materials and an appropriate methodology, and the feasibility of this program was assessed in an adult basic education setting. Analysis of achievement data indicated that the application of adult learning principles to adult literacy resulted in effective…

This guide provides step-by-step instructions to facilitate a multi-session study circle for practitioners on the topic of accountability. Practitioners will read and analyze research and discuss how to apply it in their classrooms and programs. In the first session, the Study Circle group will examine the concept of performance accountability in…

In 2005, Jobs for the Future and the National Council for Workforce Education launched "Breaking Through: Helping Low-Skilled Adults Enter and Succeed in College and Careers," with funding from the C.S. Mott Foundation. The goal of the multi-year, college-based initiative is to increase the number of low-skill adults who enter and succeed in…

The 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) measures the English literacy of America's adults (people age 16 and older living in households or prisons). The average quantitative literacy scores of adults increased 8 points between 1992 and 2003, though average prose and document literacy did not differ significantly from 1992 (figure 1).…

The principles of readability are in every style manual. Readability formulas are in every writing aid. What is missing is the research and theory on which they stand. This short review of readability research spans 100 years. The first part covers the history of adult literacy studies in the U.S., establishing the stratified nature of the adult…

This January 2002 issue of "Federal Literacy Facts" contains the following sections: (1) The Skills and Learning Agenda; (2) Budget 2001; (3) Coming Soon: Green Paper on Skills and Learning; and (4) Ensuring a Strong Response from the Literacy Community.

This research brief highlights key findings from a study that is a subset of a larger study being conducted jointly by NCSALL's John Strucker and Kentaro Yamamoto and Irwin Kirsch of the Educational Testing Service (ETS). This study builds on the proposition that a reader's comprehension performance is largely determined by his or her abilities in…

This study evaluated an innovative family literacy program in Bullitt County, KY, USA. Data sources included attendance sign-in sheets, pre- and post TABE test scores, GED success, gender, age, and ethnicity, and grant applications. The evidence suggested that since 1998, the program increasingly attracted proportionally more males, GED completion…

The learning and communication styles of front-line literacy workers and supervisors at two national industrial sites served by a national workplace literacy grant were examined to determine whether the front-line workers' learning styles differed from those of their supervisors. A learning styles inventory developed by the Center for Innovative…

A project was conducted in Pennsylvania to develop a standard set of forms to be used by nonmetropolitan literacy providers. During the project, the project team surveyed nonmetropolitan literacy providers through a first mailing to 90 agencies identified, as well as several intermediate units, with less than one-third of the agencies responding.…

This booklet is intended to help new adult literacy practitioners in Australia explore the possible meanings of the term "literacy." The booklet begins with the question, What is literacy? The next (and largest) section of the booklet considers various metaphors of literacy. A table detailing some ways of talking about literacy is…