Discusses the changing nature of UNESCO's approach to attaining worldwide literacy. Argues that any initiative in formal education or adult literacy depends on political engagement at the highest level, mobilization of necessary financial and human resources, and genuine popular participation. Suggests finding a common language to improve the…

Discusses past work toward eliminating illiteracy in Latin America and the Caribbean. Suggests planning future strategy with evaluation of what has been done based on reliable information and an effective political will. Urges concentration on quality teaching, planning, integral strategy, and a new political will. Argues that literacy training…

Examines the relationship between level of schooling and literacy attainment in four rural communities in Guatemala. The authors first identify the grade at which most children become literate and then estimate the net contribution of schooling to literacy. They found that most children became literate with between three and four years of…

Results are presented from two studies involving 190 primary and high school students and 146 primary students with reading difficulties. These studies contributed toward the development of five 200 word standardized passages which may be employed interchangeably to monitor the performance of students with reading difficulties towards achieving…

Assuming that our society is determined to bridge the digital divide, we must develop policies that tackle the issue as comprehensively as possible. To continue to proceed, we must better leverage literacy programs to interface with Internet-access programs and we must encourage the expansion of public interest Web content. (Author)

Compares the 1996 Canadian Language Benchmarks for describing English-language proficiency among second-language-learners with the International Adult Literacy Survey. Points to the potential for aligning the Benchmarks with other systems for describing adult competencies to enable more systematic integration of immigrants' experiences, skills,…

In this study the authors investigate the experience of Sandy, a nontraditional university undergraduate whose student teaching took place in a small, impoverished rural community in the southwestern U.S. They focus on her student teaching experience with third graders in a community whose youngsters, living in rural poverty, were at-risk in their…

Upper-elementary students encounter a sometimes dizzying array of traditional and nontraditional texts both in and outside of the classroom. This practical handbook helps teachers in grades 4-6 harness the instructional potential of fiction, poetry, and plays; informational texts; graphic novels; digital storytelling; Web-based and multimodal…

Provisions and purposes of four federal human resource development programs were reviewed, and options regarding the definition of basic skills and literacy were analyzed. The four programs were as follows: Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) program, Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), Adult Education Act (AEA), and the Carl D. Perkins…

This textbook is part of a Mexican series of instructional materials designed for Spanish speaking adults who are in the process of becoming literate or have recently become literate in their native language. This textbook is designed to strengthen reading and writing skills while teaching basic principles and techniques to improve family health.…

This series of instructional materials is designed for Spanish speaking adults in Mexico who are in the process of becoming literate or have recently become literate in their native language. The reading/writing workbook is presented in two volumes along with a teacher's manual for an adult literacy program directed at urban inhabitants of Mexico.…

This Mexican series of instructional materials is designed for Spanish speaking adults who are in the process of becoming literate or have recently become literate in their native language. The reading/writing workbook is presented in two volumes along with a teacher's manual for an adult literacy program directed at rural inhabitants of Mexico.…

The Kentucky Adult Literacy Survey, which was based on the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS), was conducted to determine the prose, document, and quantitative literacy levels of the state's adult population. Trained interviewers conducted hour-long interviews with 1,492 Kentucky citizens between the ages of 16 and 65 who had been selected…

This set of learning modules was developed during a project to deliver workplace literacy instruction to individuals employed in the more than 50 businesses related to the activities of the Port of Baltimore. It is intended to accomplish the following objectives: familiarize students with components of clear and direct sentences; give students…

This report analyzes the incidence of learning disabilities among individuals in Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) and other employment training programs and the impact of these learning disabilities on programmatic approaches to functional literacy assessment and training. The report examines the proportion of target individuals likely to be…