Uses an ethnographic approach to study literacy as a cultural practice rather than as isolated skills within individuals. Finds that the emphasis on literacy, teamwork, and learning meant opportunities to increase workers' skills and wages but also increased burdens. Discusses implications for education and work. (RS)

Offers step-by-step guidelines for creating effective team work in a workplace basic skills program, including preplanning, determining worker skills, developing curriculum, evaluating, and reporting the results. (JOW)

Business, labor, and education representatives from Canada and the United States exchanged positions on workplace literacy. Discussed were the need for a consumers' guide to workplace literacy, labor's stake in literacy, educators' negotiations with businesses in providing services, and program evaluation. (JOW)

Workplace-English-as-a-Second-Language (WESL) programs are successful to the extent supervisors can be involved and supportive. They know that language and literacy needs are pertinent to tasks at hand and are the individuals that employees try to please most. Supervisors need help, encouragement, and information about the WESL program from…

A group of 58 Pennsylvania workers completed the R.O.A.D. course, which involved functional context and interactive software to improve drivers' reading skills to pass the Commercial Driver's License exam. Comparison with pre- and posttest scores of 10 in a control group showed that R.O.A.D. completers had significantly higher scores. (SK)

Training employees in basic skills necessitates sensitivity to their self-esteem. This can be achieved if the organizational culture supports training, the program is voluntary, it uses the group's strengths, it challenges them on an adult level, it does not resemble traditional schooling, and it builds in quick success. (SK)

Georgia's Certified Literate Community Program is a state-supported, community-based effort that provides all levels of instruction--from basic skills to technical writing--to adults at all educational levels. The goal is to enable every capable adult to attain reading, speaking, writing, problem solving, and comprehension skills. (SK)

Converting job materials into a basic skills curriculum requires collection of information about job functions; worker abilities; social, cultural, and interpersonal aspects of the workplace; and written materials used on the job. A balance should be struck between literacy and job skills. (JOW)

Good workplace education partnerships begin with honest assessment of the problems to be addressed, building of a vision or common mission, commitment to shared responsibility, identification of resources, and the decision to act in concert toward achieving common goals. Models include basic two-partner collaborations and multiple-industry or…

Investigates normative longitudinal change in student writing during college. Selects nine measures as good representatives of nine factors--factors of independent and bound ideas, idea elaboration and substantiation, local cohesion, establishment of logical boundaries, free modification, fluency, and vocabulary. Finds that eight of the nine…

Presents five educators' ideas about what the demands of literacy in the workplace in the next millennium will be. Notes increased expansion of multiple literacies and considers electronic performance support systems and expert systems. Considers how future workplace literacy is dependent on adult literacy skills. (SC)

A study involved analysis of reading levels of occupational materials in a paper mill, a survey of employees' basic skill needs, and Test of Adult Basic Education scores for 196 workers. Materials were too difficult for one-third to read; however, many workers did not acknowledge they lacked reading skills necessary for their job tasks. (SK)

At Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina, an innovative program promotes lifelong literacy skills for university physical-plant employees and, in turn, helps these adult learners support their children's education. Instructional activities link families through children's literature, work-related readings, and personal literature. To…

Interviews with stakeholders in an adult literacy program for university employees (instructor, program director, 17 of 34 employees, 11 of 20 supervisors) showed similar perceptions of improvement in skill, confidence, and self-esteem, participation in decision making, and involvement in lifelong learning. Better communication between supervisors…

Workplace literacy learners used photos of their lives and work to create a personally meaningful curriculum. The project revealed the meaning of work and learning in their new culture and the ways they adapted to and changed their work environment. The necessity of incorporating learners' perspectives in workplace literacy was emphasized.…