Literacy and work force preparedness are two of the most important issues facing education today. Findings of nationwide studies show that reading and writing performance of students is inadequate. One of every eight current workers reads at the fourth-grade level or lower. The nation's economic future will be determined by the quality and…

The Taunton, Massachusetts, Literacy Corps (TLC) is a small adult literacy education program run by a part-time director using volunteer tutors. The program has always been hampered by a shortage of funds. There are often long waiting lists for persons needing tutors because funds are inadequate to recruit, train, and manage the number of…

The National Literacy Campaign of Zimbabwe was launched in July, 1983. The objectives of the campaign were to enable adults (1) to understand information about themselves, their localities, and their country; and (2) to become effective leaders and productive members of their cooperatives, village committees, management committees, and other…

Adult literacy is more than a condition of acquiring a set number of linguistic skills. Persons may know phonics and be able to decode simple readings perfectly; they may even know the meaning of many vocabulary words, but they still may be culturally illiterate. Cultural literacy demands more than mere linguistic skills; it demands participation…

This paper describes a system of built-in, or internal, evaluation used within the Botswana National Literacy Program (NLP). Launched in 1981 and targeted toward illiterate adults and youth aged 10 years and older, the program aims at eradicating illiteracy in Botswana by 1986. The built-in evaluation was implemented in 1983, using program…

Some good news and some bad news can be seen in six areas of workplace literacy efforts: awareness, curriculum development, collaboration, staff training, research and evaluation, and funding. The good news includes the following: (1) more highly placed corporation executives are becoming aware of the need for literacy programs; (2) curriculum…

Even Start family literacy programs in Texas were evaluated by outside evaluators. Data were gathered from two groups. The first group consisted of 631 families who were enrolled in 11 Even Start programs in Texas during the 1998-99 and 1999-2000 program years. A survey, in English or Spanish, was administered to all parents in attendance on two…

This booklet presents a summary of contemporary understandings of adult literacy in the context of development. It suggests that literacy is best seen as one of a number of different means of communications rather than a single essential basic skill; that learning literacy is not essential to development (many non-literate persons are already…