According to the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy, it is estimated that 93 million adults in the United States have basic or below basic literacy skills. Those individuals found most lacking in literacy skills were adults living in poverty, adults lacking a high school diploma, seniors and the elderly aged 65 and older, the more than one…

Describes the design, development, and implementation of an adult literacy program incorporating adult learning centers within the Brooklyn Public Library system. (CLB)

Describes three literacy organization and public library programs: Project LEARN (Cleveland, Ohio), which encourages higher-level beginning adult readers to want to read on their own; Greenville County (South Carolina) Library's Latchkey Kids Program; and policies on unattended and disruptive children developed by Iowa City and Cedar Rapids (Iowa)…

This article details the work of Vonda Ward--a middle-school teacher turned librarian. When Vonda Ward was a middle-school teacher, she could not get her students to share her excitement about history because they could not read its stories. That is when she realized how much subject mastery depended on the basics. Broward County Library's leaders…

What does it mean to be literate in the 21st century? Fifty years ago a high school graduate with some basic reading and writing ability could get a well-paying blue-collar job. Today a person at the same level might have trouble finding good work and may be considered illiterate in some circles. The past half-century has brought us not only…