This curriculum framework for adult literacy was written by 21 South Carolina adult English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) instructors, as submitted to the South Carolina Literacy Resource Center. It is based on current theories in the fields of adult education and second language acquisition and is designed to be flexible so that it may be adapted to…

A literature search revealed various definitions of literacy and various theories about how basic skills relate to occupational skills. For example, literacy was said to be defined within the context of a society and was often measured in society, rather than in isolation. Alarms were sounded about the many people in the United States who lack…

A demonstration project explored the use of speech synthesis and speech recognition in writing-based classes held by two Philadelphia literacy providers. The project examined the use of high quality speech synthesis (the computer reads words from the screen in an understandable voice) and speech recognition (the computer responds to verbal…

A project augmented instruction in writing skills given to learners in the Crawford County (Pennsylvania) READ Program with staff development that involved tutors and learners in a paired workshop setting. Four staff development workshops were conducted for tutor-learner pairs on improving writing instruction and skills. Four follow-up workshops…

The Political Literacy and Civic Education (PLACE) project in Kroo Bay, Freetown, Sierra Leone, was developed to enable people, through functional literacy and civic education, to participate in the processes of good governance by exercising their rights, duties, and obligations in an informed and responsible manner. The project suggests a…

Trends and issues related to arts and humanities in adult and continuing education can be categorized in three ways: ways of knowing, informal sites of learning, and cultural pluralism. The arts and humanities are vehicles for critical reflection, and they present paths to the individual construction of knowledge that are intuitive, relational,…

The impact of the introduction of Australia's competency-based Certificates of General Education for Adults (CGEA) in 1994 was examined through a participatory action research-based study. Data were collected from 3 sources: reflective journals kept by 12 practitioners, interviews with 13 practitioners, and related documents. Accreditation of the…

The concept of family literacy is firmly rooted in a substantial research base from several disciplines: adult literacy, emergent literacy, child development, and systems analysis. Research from these disciplines was reviewed to determine the benefits of family literacy. The results show that family literacy programs do work and that at least four…

Systematic knowledge about the dimensions and levels of literacy and information about its distribution are prerequisites for forming good educational policy. This issue discusses the conduct and findings of the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS). The IALS was not intended to rank literacy skills across countries, but was intended to make…

The primary objective of the Success Stories: From Learning to Leadership project, which was conducted by a private consulting firm, was to provide technical assistance to the Pennsylvania Department of Education's Bureau of Adult Basic and Literacy Education (ABLE) in its efforts to select and recognize the achievements of 10 outstanding ABLE…

Data were obtained from the National Child Development Study (NCDS), a large-scale longitudinal study in the United Kingdom following up a sample of people born in a single week in 1958 through to adult life, to demonstrate that poor numeracy skills have a major impact. At age 37, a 10 percent sample of 1,714 cohort members were interviewed and…

This document describes how 10 mathematics and numeracy teachers from Technical and Further Education colleges and community providers in Australia assisted in identification of mathematics skills that would form the mathematics component of the Adult Basic Education Curriculum Framework. The draft competencies are organized under the headings of…

Operation Soft Boot was a program designed to develop a computer literacy curriculum for use with adult basic education (ABE) students at their educational level. Computer literacy instruction included a review of the component parts of a personal computer system and their operation and a review of basic keyboarding skills. Instruction also…

This publication contains 37 stories, vignettes, and poems written by participants in the British Columbia Buildings Corporation Workplace Language Program. The pieces center on family, work, people, and places and were written by people who decided to learn how to improve their language skills. They represent slices of employees' lives as they…

Illinois received one of six 2-year National Institute for Literacy grants to create statewide interagency staff development systems for literacy. After a staff development plan has been developed/implemented, a needs assessment process is developed that entails the following five steps: determine indicators of program quality and develop…