Although a large number of adults in the United States are assumed to need literacy training, little agreement exists on that number. Adults who attend literacy instruction are assumed to acquire the skills, but little is known about program effectiveness. Another assumption is that adults should define their goals, but this does not ensure that…

Poor preparation of adult literacy educators is often blamed for the failure of adult literacy students. Four critical issues related to developing the adult literacy professional work force are as follows: how literacy is learned in adulthood; how practitioners learn and improve their practice; how new knowledge is generated in and for the field;…

Inquiry-based staff development is a promising direction for rethinking practice and research and for generating knowledge from a field-based perspective for adult literacy. Rethinking staff development entails investigating a number of current assumptions: the nature and function of literacy learning in adulthood; adult literacy practitioners as…

An evaluation of an 18-month workplace education program at 2 health care sites in Cambridge, Massachusetts, showed that the curriculum designed could be adapted for other workplace education programs. The workplace education program was designed to help improve the language skills of employees at Neville Manor and at the Cambridge Hospital. Of 35…

SHELCOM, an adult education project in homeless shelters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, investigated the effects of using computer technology on participants' writing and communication skills. The project consisted of 2-hour workshops, twice weekly, complemented by online support and instruction. Learners paired across the city worked on creating…

This packet contains an instructor guide and student workbook detailing 32 activities that hospital workers can use in a classroom setting to improve their vocabulary and spelling skills. The activities encompass the following: (1) different ways to look up words to spell them correctly; (2) pronunciation of words used around the workplace; (3)…

This packet contains four products of a workplace literacy course on numbers and charts for hospital workers. The instructor's manual contains an answer key for the student activities, and a pre- and post-evaluation, along with a syllabus for the 13-week course that provides information on instructional goal, course description, objectives,…

This document comprises the third annual Wyoming Education Progress Report, which measures the state's progress toward achieving the six National Education Goals by the year 2000. Three years of data indicate that parents, educators, and students are responding to the national and local education goals, and that more Wyoming students are preparing…

This document contains an annotated list of 95 resources about and/or for use in adult and family literacy programs. The list includes a wide variety of publications, including background reading materials, parent and teacher guides, program descriptions, reports of research projects, discussions/analysis of government policy, assessment…

A great deal of attention has been focused on adult literacy by policy makers, employers, unions, and state and federal government. An increasing body of work is challenging conventional assumptions and values related to literacy. The National Literacy Act of 1991 has the potential to develop an essential long-term infrastructure. Some basic…

An Israeli study determined what happens when persons with low-literacy levels read news accounts that presuppose general knowledge that the writer expects them to have, but that they may not necessarily possess. The study sample consisted of about 600 students, mostly women, in 30 literacy centers throughout the country. In each class, adult…

The directors of adult education from the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the territories met to discuss implementation of the National Literacy Act and Adult Education Act (AEA) and to begin the process of developing recommendations regarding reauthorization of AEA in 1995. The forum discussions centered around the following aspects of…

Data from the fifth sweep of Britain's National Child Development Study were analyzed to investigate the relationship between parents' literacy and numeracy problems, other parental characteristics, and their children's reading and mathematics abilities. Strong relationships were found between parents' self-reported literacy problems and their…

Intended to educate school, business, and government leaders as well as the general public, this book provides a comprehensive overview of and practical guide to the family literacy movement. The book begins by tracing the history of family literacy as an idea, as individual programs, and as a public policy movement. Then it provides guidelines to…

This collection of four papers focuses on the Lancaster and Sussex Projects (England) that place an emphasis on writing outside of school and outside of work by "ordinary" people in their everyday lives. The papers refer to each other; the first is an introduction for the others. "Introduction: Making Writing Visible on the…