This document contains a collection of direct quotations from the nearly 50 participants at a roundtable on workplace literacy. It also includes an executive summary, a list of participants, a list of related publications, and a synopsis of a presentation made at a follow-up activity.) The participants included business people, literacy experts,…

This document traces the history of volunteerism in the literacy field, discusses the current role and use of volunteers, and assesses the potential and the limits of volunteerism as a current and future means for overcoming illiteracy in the United States. (The major conclusion is that the current delivery system of literacy activities can go no…

Introduces the standardized safety sign system being established in the United States. Argues that these safety signs, symbols, and warnings may be a good place to begin a workplace literacy project for workers with limited reading skills. (SR)

This study of work force illiteracy in the southern region of the United States reached the following five conclusions: (1) the problem is concentrated more among high school dropouts than among grade school dropouts who never learned to read; (2) the South risks creating a permanent, massive pool of undereducated citizens unable to support…

A test of job-specific literacy, called the McCoy Assessment of Worksite Literacy Abilities (MAWSLA), could not predict the job success of the 100 employees who took it. The 108-item test was based on literary tasks encountered by employees in the course of a routine day at McCoy Electronics Company, a 560-employee firm in Pennsylvania. The…

Some researchers estimate that 99 percent of occupations require some ability to read. Yet, illiteracy is a present and growing problem for many businesses. Some researchers contend that the basic educational system does not prepare workers to read on the job. Many teachers consider reading an elementary skill and do not focus on it in higher…

The views and practices of literacy advocates who focus on workplace literacy foster an impoverished understanding of adult literacy and, ultimately, life itself. They reduce literacy to something that is "functional" in the reductive sense of serving someone else's ends as a functionary. A "functionally literate" person is a consumer of someone…

This document profiles six successful literacy partnerships between Canadian community colleges and public/private agencies. The following partnerships are examined: an adult basic education program provided through a partnership between New Brunswick Community College and the Correctional Service of Canada; a workplace literacy program offered…

The Vermont Institute for Self Reliance (VISR) conducted a Basic Educational Skills for Training (BEST) program, a national demonstration project in workplace literacy, from April 1990 to March 1992. BEST provided learner-centered, context-based literacy instruction onsite, on company time, at two General Electric (GE) Aircraft Engines Rutland…