Adult literacy learners are characterized by their diversity, both in terms of educational histories and cognitive skill sets. Accounting for the specific strengths and weaknesses of each learner is vital to the assessment of literacy gains and optimization of educational systems. We examined pre- and post-difference scores on a component reading…

The results of the Adult Skills Assessment confirm that there is a strong link between the level of literacy proficiency and the rate of teenage motherhood. Countries where this link is strongest could further encourage the prevention of and support with pregnancies before the age of 20 in the groups at highest risk. These measures are all the…

The 'Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies' (PIAAC), developed and managed by the OECD, is an important source of knowledge about adult skills as well as an intervention in the field of education policy. One level of the intervention is the presence of PIAAC results in public media and debate. This article presents a…

Founded in 1985, the Academy of Hope (AoH) Adult Public Charter School, an adult education and workforce development program in Washington, D.C., had to abruptly shift to a full distance learning model due to the pandemic. This suddenness necessitated a huge teaching and learning cultural shift: In only one week, AoH transitioned from an…

Rapid automatized naming (RAN) of visual items is a powerful predictor of reading skills. However, the direction and locus of the association between RAN and reading is still largely unclear. Here, we investigated whether literacy acquisition directly bolsters RAN efficiency for objects, adopting a strong methodological design, by testing three…

Transformative learning involves significant personal and social growth. Globalization, immigration, changes in socioeconomic patterns, geopolitical tensions, and advances in technology challenge teachers to understand and mobilize the changing dynamics, practices, and contexts of learning and literacy in more complex ways (Luke & Elkins,…

During the early Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union used adult literacy education to wield influence in "Third World" countries. Frank C. Laubach, the "Apostle of Literacy," wrote prolifically about adult literacy and conducted and advised literacy campaigns in more than 100 countries, yet his work is understudied…

This report makes the case for a shift in emphasis in U.S. education and workforce development policy. Specifically, the report sets out a rationale for investing more in upgrading the foundational skill levels of the U.S. workforce. The report summarizes the results of studies that used data from the 1994 International Adult Literacy Survey…

The purpose of this case series was to explore whether adults who did not have the opportunity to acquire reading skills during childhood are able to do so rapidly if trained with an adequate literacy program. After 14 weeks of training with a new, optimized, literacy course based on cognitive research, six out of eight participants became able to…

Most adult literacy studies tend to focus on learner outcomes, and the few that do include tutors usually focus on their compassion as volunteers and/or assess the effectiveness of tutor training. Since community adult literacy programs are largely dependent on volunteer tutors to provide instruction, tutors come from various backgrounds and are…

This quantitative study examined the current level of literacy skills of three cohorts of learners after they completed a non-formal basic literacy programme in 2017, 2018 and 2019. The purpose of the study, conducted in late 2019, was to identify major factors that influenced the maintenance of their levels of reading and calculating skills. The…

Federal accountability policies requiring rapid, measurable outcomes have increasingly shaped the nature and type of public literacy services available to adults. However, little empirical research has explored the impact of accountability policies on program practice in adult basic education, and almost no research has focused on the effect on…

In this article, we share the stories of three inspirational Black women who were pioneers in adult literacy: Harriet Jacobs, Susie King Taylor, and Septima Poinsette Clark. Their stories, connected to the struggle for Black literacy and the Civil Rights movement, remain relevant as we continue to strive for social justice and equity for all…

Adopting the methods of multimodal conversation analysis, this study demonstrates that adult second language (L2) users with emergent literacy formulate requests as 'complex multimodal Gestalts' consisting prototypically of deictic or depictive gestures combined with gaze, situationally relevant material, and vocal or linguistic resources. The…

The framework for this paper takes its central orientation from the New Literacy Studies (NLS) body of research which focuses on the analysis of texts and practices rather than the skills-oriented perspective of large-scale quantitative studies. In this paper, these are the texts of everyday life and the literacy practices of adult migrants before…