In the past 2 decades, researchers (often working closely with parents, teachers, and other school staff members) have conducted studies that have substantially increased understanding how to effectively teach children and adolescents with intellectual disability (ID) to read. This research focus has been fueled by increased societal expectations…

The purpose of this article is to outline four categories of issues that are fundamental to understanding the efficacy of technology for enhancing reading performance. The four categories of issues include: (1) What does it mean when we say a person is a reader or a nonreader?; (2) Instructional methods: Lessons of the achievement gap; (3)…

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.…

This final report details the computer-based Performance-Related Enabling Skills Training (PREST) Project, designed to meet the United States Navy's need to develop an efficient and effective means of increasing the reading skills of Navy recruits with minimal loss of training time and minimal diversion of military personnel. The report is divided…

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)

Described is a technique for the development of survival reading activity packets for the science classroom. The reading packets described include labels from different food and medicine products and from magazine and newspaper articles. Three types of questions were used with each packet: factual, interpretive, and application. (DS)

This two-volume curriculum guide, designed to meet the functional reading needs of Maryland's 182,000 public school students in grades one through twelve, contains objectives, activities, and materials for classroom use. The guide, part of a reading program started in 1972 and described in "Effective Reading Programs...," is used by…

Practical information on how to teach severely retarded and severely retarded autistic students of limited English proficiency is presented. Specific information is given on developing a functional word list for these students that utilizes both Spanish and English. Other helpful techniques for teaching students in both languages are offered.…

Reports on the work of the Sheffield (England) Occupational Functional Reading Project. Describes the development of two criterion referenced tests of occupational functional reading ability and reports on their reliability. (FL)

This document describes the British Adult Literacy and Basic Skills Unit (ALBSU) because information on the ALBSU experience might be useful to planners working to establish a similar national literacy center in the United States. (The ALBSU was formed in London in the mid-1970s to support the BBC's television-based national adult literacy…

Advocates using annual reports to help adult learners bridge the gap between competence with basic reading tasks and competence with more difficult and complex tasks which require inferential thinking and application of information for decision making and problem solving. (RS)

The Sheffield (Great Britain) Occupational Functional Reading Project was organized to study the functional reading required of 16-year-old school leavers who entered employment or training for a job, and to design instruments for assessing and diagnosing occupational functional reading abilities. The primary task of the project was to develop a…

Through the Jefferson County Adult Reading Project, 293 students functioning at a 3.9 reading level and below attended reading classes. Test results demonstrated the growth in educational advancement while retention rates and growing enrollment showed other measures of success in the project components. The Word Identification, Word Attack, and…

Through the 1979-80 Jefferson County Adult Reading Project, 508 students functioning at a 5.9 reading level and below attended reading classes. Test results demonstrated the growth in educational advancement while retention rates and growing enrollment showed other measures of success in the project components. Recruitment techniques used were…

A systematic model for accelerating the process of developing the word decoding skills and building the vocabularies of bilingual adults was used among prison populations in Rockland County, Dutchess County, Suffolk County, and Essex County, New York, as well as in work-study programs in community centers in New York City. Literacy levels of the…