Looks at developments in adult reading over the past two decades, concentrating on the training of teachers, testing and evaluation, and program evaluation methods. Concludes that while adult reading has made substantial progress, it is still not a mature field. (FL)

For almost half a century the United States military services have incorporated formal literacy programs into job training for those enlistees who are less than fully qualified. Over the years, several successful job-specific reading programs have evolved. In 1975, the Army began the Functional Literacy (FLIT) Program, a program based on a…

This digest about issues currently being debated in the adult literacy field examines the appropriate goals and objectives for adult literacy education, professionalization of the field, and literacy program evaluation. The first section reflects the disagreement between those who believe the purpose of literacy education should be to support…

A college-level reading center program was adapted for use in helping a group of state employees improve their reading skills. This paper explains how the program originated and describes program procedures (including diagnosis, the determination of individual and course objectives, record keeping, class format, and class presentations) materials…

A demonstration project established eight self-supporting, volunteer-staffed adult basic reading tutorial programs in Connecticut, seven in Massachusetts, and one in central New York city. Literacy Volunteers of America (LVA) tutors also helped adult basic education students, tutored inmates and trained inmate tutors in correctional institutions,…

Discusses the content and structure of a computer-based instructional program in reading for disadvantaged adults and describes the design, test materials, procedures, and results of a formative evaluation with 36 pre-GED students in an Illinois Correctional Center. Results support the value of such complete computer-based reading comprehension…

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…

To measure the effectiveness of the Basic Skills Education Program (BSEP) reading curriculum--eight reading skill modules employing military job-specific reading materials and used by the U.S. Army in Europe (USAREUR)--and to provide information for improving it, a study examined 183 soldiers from 38 European posts who were enrolled in the BSEP…

Although college adult developmental reading does not enjoy the status of mainstream academic fields, it has made substantial progress toward that goal in the past three decades. Characteristics differentiating it from academic fields are its generalist orientation, its isolation from other disciplines, and its emphasis on practitioners as…

The Horry County, South Carolina, Reading Crusade, a joint effort of the Literacy Council and the school district, was begun in 1979-80 with the intent of raising the literacy level of adults. The school district's Adult and Community Education Department provided office space, telephones, lab space, salaries, and mileage for the coordinators. The…

Teachers from eight East Harlem (New York) day care centers were trained in a program called Literacy Through Love, that was designed to prepare day care center teachers to initiate family reading workshops at their centers. The five-session training program focused on stories, folktales, nonfiction, wordless picture books, and poetry. Each…

The following articles are included: "Reconceptualizing the Language of Adult Literacy" (Ilsley, Stahl); "Expanding the Definition of Literacy for Adult Remedial Readers" (Heathington); "Adult Literacy Programs" (Davis); "Stages in the Reading Development of Adults" (Norman, Malicky); "Reading Concepts…

Focusing on new concepts in college reading, the papers in this volume were drawn from the thirteenth annual meeting of the National Reading Conference held in 1963. The 20 papers are grouped into three sections, the first of which contains descriptions and evaluations of reading programs, a study of methods of training teachers for the…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The ten titles deal with the following topics: passage integrity and type of instruction in prose learning; college student self-concept and reading gain in two instructional methods; the consequences for adults of childhood…