The subject of this article are the factors and reasons for the bad results in reading of the Bulgarian 15-year-old students in PISA's international studies. The reference points of the analysis are the critical results from the last four studies--2000, 2006, 2009 and 2012. The aim of this analysis is to bring up for discussion unformulated topics…

Learning to read and write is a fundamental right. Yet official figures by the National Bureau of Statistics indicate that 38% of African adults are illiterate. This study ascertained the level of literacy of Igbo-Ora community and the effects on community development. Mixed methods of survey were applied. A questionnaire of 32 items was used to…

Illiteracy in the Arab world is becoming an urgent necessity particularly facing problems of poverty, ignorance, extremism, which impede the required economic, social, political and cultural development processes. Extremism, violence and terrorism, in the Arab world, can only be eliminated by spreading of knowledge, fighting illiteracy. The study…

This article examines the invention of counting literacy on a national basis in nineteenth-century Britain. Through an analysis of Registrar Generals' reports, it describes how the early statisticians wrestled with the implications of their new-found capacity to describe a nation's communications skills in a single table and how they were unable…

Paper is dedicated to the testing of the concept of "literacy," based on the questionnaire, carried out in the school year of 2018/2019 among the students of two secondary vocational schools in Vrsac, Belgrade and Grammar School in Vrsac (200 respondents). The primary hypothesis of the research was that detection and detailed study of…

This article reports on one teacher's journey, Nan's, as she struggled to provide appropriate instruction to low-literate day laborers in an English as a second language (ESL) class for adult learners. In her efforts to do so, Nan became inspired to implement alternative pedagogy based on a culturally responsive approach that resonated strongly…

Literacy levels in Africa are low, and school instruction outcomes are not promising. Africa also has a disproportionate number of unschooled children. Phonological awareness (PA), especially phoneme awareness, is critically associated with literacy, but there is little evidence about whether PA is gained through literacy, schooling, or both,…

This article explores discriminatory discourses articulated by Italian professionals operating in educational, health and social services for refugees in Rome, in relation to the educational and social inclusion of unaccompanied asylum-seeking and refugee children. It locates such narratives within the historical 'concealment and invisibilisation…

This article emphasizes the importance of understanding local contexts to provide appropriate education for teachers about literacy instruction. The author reviews general problems that follow from extrapolating from unrepresentative research samples and the errors and deficit conceptions that follow from assuming that all cognition takes place…

This study investigated what log files can reveal about learner behaviour of low- and non-literate adults learning to read for the first time in Finnish as a second language. The participants' reading development was supported by practising in an online training environment. Log files, automatically created user-computer interaction records, were…

This paper presents an innovative and effective approach for conducting surveys with preliterate adults in a context of limited infrastructure in post conflict Burundi, Africa. We conducted surveys with parents/carers of children with a disability and community members, as a component of mixed methods research with children and adults to provide…

Literacy is the gatekeeper to modern information. In the world today, approximately 740 million adults are excluded from adult education if that education uses literate instructional strategies. Nearly 3/4 of a billion adults, many of whom speak unwritten languages, do not use reading to learn new information nor share information through writing.…

Preschool programs have expanded rapidly in low- and middle-income countries, but there are widespread concerns about whether they are of sufficient quality to promote children's learning and development. We conducted a large school-randomized control trial ('Quality Preschool for Ghana' -- QP4G) of a one-year teacher training and coaching…

This paper aims to examine the current inequalities within Nigeria's education system with a brief focus on Lagos, Ondo State and Ogun State. It will also examine how the current system is funded and will consider the percentage of GDP the government spends on education in Nigeria in comparison to other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. In addition…

Parental involvement in their children's schooling is in recognition that establishing the context in which a child attends school is important. Reading to Learn (RtL)was implemented in two districts of Kwale and Kinango in Kenya and of Amolatar and Dokolo in Uganda. This paper looks at parental involvement and their experiences with RtL. Data are…