Describes the elementary school that won the 1996 National PTA Reading/Literacy Award. The PTA helped create a literacy center program designed to teach adults to read so they could help their children read. The article also describes the five runner-up programs for the award. (SM)

Compares two approaches to teaching reading to adults: the eclectic, research-based method of Literacy Volunteers of America (LVA) and the phonics-based Laubach Literacy International. Concludes that LVA has the advantages of adaptability to student differences, a thorough evaluation system, and a superior published reading series. (SK)

Describes experiences with adult students showing that teachers can take a dialogic approach to literacy in any classroom setting. Points out that the focus is on talk, generative themes, and written dialog. (SR)

Describes the difficulties of teaching a reading class in a prison. Emphasizes the importance of sharing and of teaching based on democratic principles. Shows how using collaboration, perspective sharing, and children's literature helped to bond the class. Concludes that teaching inside a prison is different from teaching in a regular institution,…

Offers (1) a teaching strategy using contemporary music themes to increase adolescents' confidence and reading fluency; and (2) a brief description of four literacy programs from around the world which were UNESCO prize winners. (SR)

Describes and analyzes how an Urban Appalachian woman who could not read or write progressed to functional levels when instruction involved her in reading her own language. Argues that educators who failed to acknowledge her language as an integral aspect of her as a learner may have denied her previous access to literacy. (SR)

Evaluated a service learning course that matched preservice teachers and older adult literacy learners and aimed to address widespread attrition in adult education programs and the need for multicultural education for preservice teachers. Data revealed two essential elements of successful, reciprocal learning relationships: connecting across…

Early in 2004 the New England Board of Higher Education bestowed its annual award for excellence on Changing Lives Through Literature. A 1991 experiment that has spread by word of mouth through a dozen courts in Massachusetts, Changing Lives puts the classroom study of literature at the core of an alternative-sentencing program for criminal…

In this paper, we discuss the Functional Adult Literacy Program (FALP) that we have developed in Turkey. FALP, which is taught by volunteer instructors, focuses on individuals who have had very little or no schooling. The two evaluation studies of the first three cohorts of the program indicate that FALP is significantly more effective than the…

This booklet provides a description of each of the 237 adult literacy projects funded in fiscal year 1990 by the Library Literacy Program, Title VI of the Library Services and Construction Act (LSCA). The projects are keyed to a list of over 90 literacy activities that could be offered by libraries, thus showing the scope of each project and…

Noting that adult literacy involves adults who are readers and who are nonreaders, and that it is necessary to deal not only with problems of adult illiteracy, but also to encourage literate adults to read for work and pleasure, this bibliography presents annotations of 32 conference papers and journal articles published between 1989 and 1992…

This paper briefly describes a project designed to provide for assessment, materials, and instruction for adult rural Oregon students reading at less than a fifth grade level. An overview is provided of the resulting curriculum guide, "C.A.R.E.-Challenging Adults to Read Effectively," which was intended for teachers, tutors, or paraprofessionals…

The social context activity model of adult literacy instruction posits that literacy is a relative phenomena and literacy needs are specific to the individual and the social context within which the individual operates. Instruction is based on the concept of activity with a prospective focus on the formation of students' shared and personal…

This 8-item test is intended to help adult basic education teachers obtain a quick assessment of the prereading skills that their beginning adult readers have already mastered. The individual items of the test are designed to assess the following: ability to write one's own name; left-to-right orientation; perceptual hearing; sound-letter and…

Intended to help adult education teachers and administrators select the type of adult literacy program that works best for their students, this digest surveys nine different programs and discusses the assessment methods used for each program. The programs examined are: (1) Time to Read; (2) Center for Literacy program; (3) Federal Prison System…