Literacy is widely acknowledged as a necessary 21st-century skill, particularly for adult learners. However, continued low academic achievement among adult basic literacy learners remains a global concern. This study aimed to address the challenge of limited application of literacy in daily life among adult learners by examining the effectiveness…

Describes the first Unesco Experimental Literacy Program. (SP)

This document is an English-language abstract (approximately 1,500 words) of a study about the world's illiteracy. The writer recalls that the gap between underdeveloped and industrial nations is particularly wide in the field of education. About two fifths of the world's adult population, nearly 800 million people are unable to read or write. The…

This study outlines some of the literacy problems of immigrants to Canada and the attempts being made to overcome these problems. The study first examines some of the popular definitions of literacy with a view to finding one that might be a goal for all illiterates in Canada regardless of their birthplace. Next, the latest data are analyzed to…

A study was conducted to examine the literature on literacy and adult basic education and to identify various issues, trends, problems, possible solutions, and basic principles that might guide programs and policies in adult literacy and basic education in Canada. More than 120 documents were examined, raising such issues as what is literacy and…

Describes the Active Reading Techniques System (ACTS), developed at Ohio State University as an instructional system for use by tutors of adult learners. ACTS consists of five techniques, each of which are described separately: Language Experience Technique, Information Reading Technique, Life-Skills Technique, Context Clues Technique, and Silent…

Traces the progress of a beginning adult reader along the literacy continuum shown by child readers. Provides suggestions for teaching reading and writing to beginners which build on a learner's personal experiences and knowledge of language. (ARH)

This booklet contains 29 articles about literacy that originally appeared in newspapers across Canada during September 1987. Many are based on the extensive findings of a national literacy survey of 2,398 Canadian adults commissioned by Southam Inc. The survey provided the first real statistics about the state of literacy in the country;…

This bibliography provides a list of 65 selected works on the topic of adult literacy in developing countries. It is a contemporary list, including only works published in the last 15 years. The works are organized into subject categories. Works are listed only once; in cases where a work could be listed under more than one category, it is listed…

This special report is a look at illiteracy across Canada and in Saskatchewan. It includes stories by Peter Calamai, a national correspondent with Southam News, and by Regina Leader-Post reporters Kevin O'Connor, Zena Olijnyk, Ron Petrie, and Beverley Spencer. The publication also includes stories by the Canadian press. Calamai's stories are the…

This guide was developed by the Chicago Urban Skills Institute to provide improved instruction in English as a second language (ESL) to adults in the adult learning skills program. The guide provides standardized guidelines for the content of ESL courses and ideas for lesson and course planning. Course content is described for 21 ESL courses which…

This guide was developed to meet the needs of the increasingly large number of nonliterate and semiliterate adult English-as-a-second-language (ESL) learners in the Chicago metropolitan area. It is suitable for learners who are illiterate or semiliterate in their native languages, or who are literate in a language using a non-Roman alphabet. The…

The LEX [language experience] Process for English Reading Instruction, a pilot project of the Guadalupe Educational Programs, Inc., Salt Lake City, Utah, during 1980-81, is presented in this 300-page manual that describes how the LEX Process model may be replicated by educational agencies seeking to provide survival and functional English as a…

This manual is designed to aid volunteer tutors to use the LEX [language experience] Process for English Reading Instruction Manual (see note) to provide survival and functional English as a second language (ESL) to immigrant and minority people. The Process employs the methods of "language experience" in response to the widely varied language…

This brief paper describes a literacy program for adults with mental retardation in the Boston metropolitan region developed when more than 300 individuals formally requested literacy services. Several cognitive and literacy assessments were reviewed and implemented. No one assessment was found to be sufficient to assess ranges from pre-literacy…