How-to-do-it monologues and tasks based on actual job reading give students needed practice in relating reading to job activities. (SK)

Advocates looking around and discovering the real literacy exhibited in everyday activities. Describes the literacy observed at a laundromat. Finds that everyone there was literate in this situation, able to both follow directions and entertain themselves with reading. (SR)

Explores the function of reading in several societies. (MKM)

The study of reading in restricted contexts ultimately short changes children. The continuous proliferation of research data results in teacher training courses that are overloaded with marginally relevant material. A vast number of "teachable skills" are isolated, and well-meaning publishers produce sophisticated but unnecessary materials;…

Discusses the importance of combining functional reading with meaningful daily activities in the student's home, school, community, and vocational training areas. Emphasizes the need for severely handicapped and severely handicapped autistic students of limited English proficiency to be provided instruction in English as well as Spanish.…

Discusses adult literacy and the need for appropriate instruction to prepare workers for job-related reading. (MG)

Argues that the obligatory nature of functional literacy does not deprive the individual freedom of thought and opinion, and that voluntarism in basic adult education in the United States has greatly contributed to putting the nation at risk and to keeping it a nation at risk. (HOD)

Emphasizes that reading is a whole person process based on understanding the message rather than on isolated skills. (MKM)

These thoughts, by an author of a paper (EC 611 428) on teaching adolescents with moderate mental retardation to read key warning label words, focus on the importance of teaching for generalization or teaching word recognition using actual labels and encouraging an appropriate behavioral response. (DB)

This document contains a collection of direct quotations from the nearly 50 participants at a roundtable on workplace literacy. It also includes an executive summary, a list of participants, a list of related publications, and a synopsis of a presentation made at a follow-up activity.) The participants included business people, literacy experts,…

Refutes six arguments commonly used to discredit remedial teaching of decoding skills to young adults in order to motivate both researchers and teachers to reexamine the role of decoding skills in reading in the upper grades and beyond. (SKC)

Presents a fictitious dialogue in which a teacher of a college methods course in reading points out to her students that (1) people read for different purposes, (2) reading needs vary from community to community, and (3) teachers should investigate the reading needs of people in their communities. (GT)

Reports on a study of reading and writing practices within a community environment. Concludes that literacy has different meanings for members of different groups, with a variety of modes, functions, and uses. Points out that these differences have yet to be taken into account by policymakers. (JMF)

Introduces the standardized safety sign system being established in the United States. Argues that these safety signs, symbols, and warnings may be a good place to begin a workplace literacy project for workers with limited reading skills. (SR)

Using historical and contemporary perspectives, the paper argues that reading is a malleable social practice with identifiable moral and ideological consequences. A model that defines reading in contemporary social life through four interconnected roles is presented. The importance of critical reading in everyday life is illustrated through…