The Adult Learner Competencies Project included literature and consultation with adult education practitioners in Pennsylvania to establish competencies that can be used by all Adult Basic and Literacy Education (ABLE) providers in the state. The lists that were developed through the project, and which form the major part of this document, are…

The "Focus on Basics" serial concerns adult Learning and literacy. The eight short articles in this theme issue are all devoted to the topic of "learner motivation": (1) "Power, Literacy, and Motivation" (Greg Hart); (2) "The First Three Weeks: A Critical Time for Motivation" (B. Allan Quigley); (3) "Build Motivation by Building Learner…

This document lists the national quality standards for volunteer literacy programs that were developed by Laubach Literacy Action in a 2-year project that began in 1994 and involved the following activities: extensive review of existing literacy quality standards and guidelines; analysis of previous national efforts to identify the elements…

This document contains the proceedings of a conference on adult learners conducted to identify barriers that prevent certain groups of adults from participating in lifelong learning opportunities and to deepen understanding of practices and institutional arrangements that better enable such adults to learn. Following a summary of the workshops of…

According to Statistics Canada, as many as 8 million Canadians do not have the literacy skills necessary to prosper in a knowledge-based society and economy. For most of these Canadians, the challenge is not simply in "decoding" text, but in "understanding and working with" it. The demands of the knowledge-based society are…

The Annual Partnership Report is a collection of all established partnerships that Wyoming community colleges cultivated and maintained for fiscal year 2004. Serving as transfer preparation institutions, vocational educators, providers of workforce training and personal development education, and cultural centers, Wyoming comprehensive community…

One of the recommendations of the "Adult Literacy and Numeracy in Scotland" report (ALNIS), published in 2001, was that progress against its recommendations should be reviewed at the end of the third year of the national initiative. This HMIE report contributes to that review of progress. The report confirms that the initiative is having…

Success in the specialized form of teaching reading to adults is conditional upon teachers understanding the relationship between language and the physical world. A lot can be learned from the Direct Method techniques used by those who teach foreign languages. Suitable reading materials are at last becoming available for beginners. (Author/AJ)

Reprints an interview with the Director of the i.t.a. Foundation about the history of i.t.a. and plans for its continuing use in the United States. (MB)

An outline of the problems facing adult literacy workers: languages without alphabets, obstruction by social and bureaucratic institutions, and a client population difficult to reach. Literacy workers' prime error has been to underestimate the illiterates' pragmatic knowledge and creativity and capacity for abstraction. (JB)

The distinction between deep and surface levels of language; the intersection of learning theory and cognitive development; and the linguistic competence of the pre-literate child and the illiterate adult are highlighted. Author argues that T-G Grammar will be a powerful aid to recognizing and dealing with problems of mass literacy education.…

Discusses ways in which the National Reading Council, the National Reading Center, public and private schools, and the International Reading Association can relate to the Right to Read effort. (VJ)