Many secondary and postsecondary basic skills programs are designed to assist students whose ability to succeed in traditional subject matter instruction is in question. Research done in business, industry, and particularly in the military provides procedures that may increase the likelihood of success in such programs. Analyses of on-the-job…

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 offers materials for a year-long course on general basic reading skills that was part of a workplace literacy project developed by Mercer County Community College (New Jersey), and its partners. The document contains the following: (1) outlines (each of which contains objectives, a topical outline, and list of textbooks) for two…

This document offers materials for a 16-hour course on reading and writing tasks performed by front-line hospital supervisors who have a high school education. The course was part of a workplace literacy project developed by Mercer County Community College (New Jersey) and its partners. The document begins with an explanation of the project, a…