The ability to read promotes academic success and serves as an essential prerequisite skill for many postsecondary opportunities. However, developing proficient reading skills is particularly difficult for many individuals with intellectual disability (ID) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Reading is an important life skill for all individuals,…

The authors reviewed studies on teaching reading comprehension to students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) with a focus on text (academic reading) comprehension and sight word (functional) comprehension. Eleven of 754 studies met the inclusion criteria: participants with ASD, published in English in a peer-reviewed journal, and use of an…

There exists a controversy as to whether or not minimal competency testing in the area is a sound educational practice. A review of reading research in three areas, developmental reading, functional reading and recreational reading was conducted to provide data relevant to the controversy. (RD)

Three issues related to improving basic skills in this nation are discussed in this paper: the definition of "basic literacy skills" and the number of Americans who are purportedly illiterate, what evidence exists that minorities in the United States really have a more serious problem than others in acquiring basic literacy skills, and…

Discusses pedagogical implications of recent theory and research on response to literature. Contends that now teachers must be aware of readers, the text, and the context in which a text is read and discussed. (MS)

Many secondary and postsecondary basic skills programs are designed to assist students whose ability to succeed in traditional subject matter instruction is in question. Research done in business, industry, and particularly in the military provides procedures that may increase the likelihood of success in such programs. Analyses of on-the-job…

The views and practices of literacy advocates who focus on workplace literacy foster an impoverished understanding of adult literacy and, ultimately, life itself. They reduce literacy to something that is "functional" in the reductive sense of serving someone else's ends as a functionary. A "functionally literate" person is a consumer of someone…