Project POWER is a workplace literacy program conducted by Triton College. The project offers courses in English as a Second Language (ESL) and Adult Basic Education (ABE) to employers who are willing to pay their employees for half their class time and for 15 percent of the instructional costs. By the end of January 1990, the project had…

Reading and writing plays can be a good way to learn reading, listening, and writing skills. This paper contains suggestions for using plays in adult literacy courses. Ideas are given for reading and writing plays, including developing a plot and characters, drafting a script, and editing and finalizing a script. Various methods of transcribing…

The National Council of La Raza's position on the reauthorization of Title I of the Higher Education Act is detailed in this paper, which was presented as testimony to the House Postsecondary Education Subcommittee. The paper begins by concurring with the assessment that, as long as Title I remains a largely untargeted program which serves…

A study examined the characteristics and attitudes of tutors and students involved in Project LEARN, an adult literacy program affiliated with the Interchurch Council of Greater Cleveland, Ohio. Data for the study were obtained from several sources, including a mail questionnaire administered to all 183 tutors involved in the project, a longer…

This examination of the relationship between illiteracy and the labor market in California describes in general terms the effects of widespread illiteracy on employers, the unemployed, employees, and the California economy. It discusses current programs which address the lack of basic literacy skills in the labor market, and identifies some of the…

The Language Experience Approach (LEAP), a literacy education method based on the premise that reading is a by-product of the student's thinking and oral expression, was used as the basis of two series of interactive microcomputer lessons designed to improve adult reading and writing skills. In the three years following the creation of the…

The study described in this book was designed to create an overall picture of the type of student found at a school for educationally substandard army recruits in England, to establish the causes of the student's educational backwardness and relate these to linguistic performance, and to compare the effectiveness of the approaches and methods used…

This report provides a summary and evaluation of a retreat held for the directors and literacy coordinators of the 46 public libraries participating in the California Literacy Campaign (CLC), their supervisors, State Library staff, and members of the California Library Services Board. Following a brief introduction and overview, descriptions of…

The Arizona response to Project Literacy U.S. (PLUS) was to establish a statewide literacy referral telephone line. The activities leading up to the establishment of the referral line included the following: (1) a telephone with 1-800 capabilities was installed at the Scottsdale Adult Learning Center in September 1986; (2) a referral file/index of…

This guide explains how to plan, develop, and conduct a writing workshop for literacy volunteers who will be working with beginning readers. The workshop has been developed to introduce literacy volunteers to the idea of writing original supplementary reading materials, give them experience in writing with a controlled vocabulary and strict…

Compiled to assist those who are interested in building better workplace literacy programs, the first ERIC/RCS FAST (Focused Access to Selected Topics) Bibliography is a selection of representative documents from searches of the ERIC database. The bibliography is divided into the following groups: eight sources that provide an overview of concerns…

This paper describes the programs to be undertaken in the State of California for fiscal years 1988-1992, pursuant to the Library Services and Construction Act (LSCA). Introductory materials review the LSCA, the State Advisory Council on Libraries, the state's growth and development, a Legislative Statement of Intent, and the State Library's…

Profound changes in the structure of the workplace and in the nature of jobs now make reading, writing, and other communications skills vital to the performance of even entry-level jobs. However, massive numbers of present and future workers have only minimal or marginal proficiency in the basic skills. The problem will get worse as the labor pool…

Dependence on standardized tests in adult literacy programs derives partly from their relative ease of adminstration and their appearance of providing valid and reliable quantitative data for program evaluation. Few adult educators are satisfied with the quality of the information, and most are extremely dissatisfied with the effects of such…

This collection contains the texts of four draft papers and four responses that were presented at a symposium on defining literacy. The following papers are included: "Definitions of Literacy" (Richard L. Venezky); "Definitions of Literacy: Responses" (Reynaldo F. Macias); "Literacy for What Purpose?" (Larry…