One out of six adults in the United States possesses low literacy skills. Many advocates believe that technology can pave the way for these adults to gain the skills that they desire. This article describes an adaptive intelligent tutoring system called AutoTutor that is designed to teach adults comprehension strategies across different levels of…

Previous studies have documented the personal transformation that many low literate adults undergo when they engage in literacy campaigns. In particular, research has captured how improved literacy leads to a greater willingness and capacity to speak out, or what is often referred to as voice. This paper focusses on the impact of an adult…

The implementation of adult education in Ethiopia is the responsibility of different sectors. Studies indicated that the collaboration among these sectors is unsatisfactory, but the main factors that deter the collaboration are not well studied. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to assess major factors that deter intersectoral collaboration…

Adult literacy has been on the margins of postsecondary education for so long that many in our field assume our ongoing struggle for adequate funding and a better image is somehow "normal." It is "not normal" that some 107,000,000 adults across North America are marginalized, with many hidden in society due to low literacy.…

The development of effective oral communication skills is a high priority for beginner-level, adult English language learners, and clear pronunciation is an essential part of this development. The perception and production of English vowel sounds can be a particularly challenging area of pronunciation for beginner-level learners. If adult learners…

We used metastudy and metasynthesis techniques to conduct a discursive review of 101 recent publications on the topic of adult functional literacy (FL). Our purpose was to understand the ideologies shaping current definitions and conceptualizations of FL, as well as how and why FL is researched and assessed as it is. Using discursive review…

The present study addresses word recognition automaticity in Spanish-speaking adults who are neoliterate by assessing the event-related potential N170 for word stimuli. Participants engaged in two reading conditions that vary the degree of attention required for linguistic components of reading: (a) an implicit reading task, in which they detected…

This article evaluates the progress in literacy among the Indian states, from an age-cohort perspective. It argues that age-cohort analysis offers a robust understanding of the dynamics of literacy progress. The article clearly brings out the fact that, despite the accomplishment of universal elementary education, achieving the goal of full…

Between 2012 and 2022, the literacy proficiency of the working-age population in the countries that took part in the Survey of Adult Skills is set to improve, mainly driven by the relatively low proficiency of the cohorts who will reach 65 between now and 2022 and the much higher literacy skills among the incoming age group. The participating…

This paper draws on sociological and critical educational frames, particularly Bourdieu's concept of symbolic violence, in order to contest the dominant model of literacy education that is driven by the premise of a 'knowledge economy'. Instead it foregrounds the political, social, and economic factors that marginalise learners. Data from two…

The purpose of this study was to examine the shared, direct, and indirect contributions of three metalinguistic skills (phonological awareness, morphological awareness, orthographic knowledge) to the reading comprehension abilities of struggling adult readers. Across studies, these three metalinguistic skills have individually emerged as important…

Background: In Germany, three large-scale surveys--the Level One Study (LEO), the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), and the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS)--provide complementary data on adults' literacy skills that can be harnessed to study adults with low literacy. To ensure that research on…

A major challenge in research with struggling adult readers is their heterogeneity in reading-related competencies and demographic characteristics. The purpose of this investigation was to identify unique profiles of skill sets among struggling adult readers and explore informative demographic differences between profiles. Using latent class…

A major challenge in research with struggling adult readers is their heterogeneity in reading-related competencies and demographic characteristics. The purpose of this investigation was to identify unique profiles of skill sets among struggling adult readers and explore informative demographic differences between profiles. Using latent class…

Research with school-age readers suggests that the contributions of reading and language skills vary across reading comprehension assessments and proficiency levels. With a sample of 168 struggling adult readers, we estimated the explanatory effects of decoding, oral vocabulary, listening comprehension, fluency, background knowledge, and…