Reviews research on literacy skills and demographics of welfare recipients, characteristics of adult basic education programs, and literacy program goals and outcomes under welfare reform. Notes that, although educational credentials or training dramatically improve employment outcomes, welfare reform deemphasizes education and training. (SK)

In the Alberta research in practice project, literacy educators initiated participatory approaches with groups of adult learners and conducted research about projects. In the process, they learned about participatory approaches, their practices, and themselves. (Author/JOW)

A shared document-based annotation tool was presented, and its usefulness in two different real-life web-based university-level courses (adult learners, n = 27 and adolescent learners, n = 23) was empirically investigated. The study design embodied three data collection phases: (1) a pretest measuring self-rated motivation, learning strategies,…

Incarceration is an anxiety- and depression-inducing experience. These states are maximal at prison intake, when the offender is struggling to adjust to dramatic changes in daily life. At intake, offenders undergo a wide array of assessments, many of which determine the services and treatment that they will receive. In the Commonwealth of…

To increase the rate at which adult basic skills students advance to and succeed in college-level occupational programs, the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) developed the Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training, or I-BEST. In the I-BEST model, a basic skills instructor and an occupational instructor team…

This training guide was created by the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL) to help connect research and practice in the field of adult education and family literacy. A Health and Adult Literacy and Learning (HALL)/NCSALL Health Literacy Study Circle+ is a professional development activity for adult basic education…

Although in the past the field of youth development has been subsumed within or occluded by other traditional development sectors such as education, a re-emerging emphasis on security in US government foreign assistance has tended to foreground youth as a frame of reference for international development programming and public diplomacy. While…

Talking to young men in an Irish prison we discover that cockroaches are a day to day fact of life. We discuss how best to deal with them and someone says that while in [name of prison] he used to put his socks over the bottom of his jeans so that they wouldn't be able to run up his trousers while he was asleep. Someone else tells me he used to…

A stratified random sample of 1,500 state legislators from 12 states was surveyed regarding their perceptions and knowledge of issues in reading instruction. The states were selected to provide a balanced mix of state sizes, state budget sizes, and geographic regions. Within states, legislators were selected to balance districts. Both mail surveys…

This newsletter reviews two books about family literacy in the United States. The first, "A Survey of Family Literacy in the United States" (edited by Lesley Mandel Morrow, Diane H. Tracey, and Caterina Marcone Maxwell), is a reference guide for educators and policymakers that includes the following: brief descriptions of programs for children and…

A study examined 60 adult students' informal knowledge of percent and its relationship to their formal computational skills. The students studying in adult education programs were interviewed to ascertain the following: (1) their ideas of the meanings of three benchmark percentages--100, 50, and 25 percent--as they appear in advertising and media…

This study examined adult students' informal knowledge of percent and its relationship to their computational skills. Sixty adults studying in urban and suburban adult education programs were interviewed to ascertain: (1) their ideas of the meanings of benchmark percents, 100%, 50%, and 25%, as they appear in advertising and media contexts; (2)…

A project was conducted to teach family financial management to a class of adult basic education (ABE) students. Materials on budgeting were provided, and students had to prepare budgets based on various fictitious situations described. After 2 weeks, changes in their situations were introduced so that they had to alter their budgets accordingly.…

This booklet describes 10 outstanding adult education and literacy programs, one for each of the country's 10 geographic regions, that won awards from the U.S. Secretary of Education in 1992. The winners embody the best elements of how the adult learning system will move the nation to meet the National Education Goal for Adult Literacy and…

The revised General Educational Development (GED) tests introduced in 1988 require higher-level analytical skills of examinees than previous tests. The most immediate revision is the writing skills test, which requires examinees to demonstrate writing ability. This guide provides the GED student with a plan for writing an essay that will receive a…