Adults enrolled in basic education exhibit poor academic performance, often reading at elementary and middle-school levels. The current study investigated the similarities and differences of reading skills and eye movement behavior between a sample of 25 low-skilled adult readers and 25 first grade students matched on word reading skill.…

Adults enrolled in basic education exhibit poor academic performance, often reading at elementary and middle-school levels. The current study investigated the similarities and differences of reading skills and eye movement behavior between a sample of 25 low-skilled adult readers and 25 first grade students matched on word reading skill. t tests…

Adult Basic Education programs are under pressure to develop and deliver instruction that promotes rapid and sustained literacy development. We describe a novel approach to a literacy intervention that focuses on morphemes, which are the smallest meaningful units contained in words. We argue that if you teach learners that big words are comprised…

The following insights into the reading skills of 312 participants in adult basic and secondary education programs are based on a principal components analysis of reading components' contributions to variance in reading comprehension. Overall, 75% of variance was explained by four composite variables representing word skills, language…

This article reports the results from a randomized control field trial that investigated the impact of an enhanced decoding and spelling curriculum on the development of adult basic education (ABE) learners' reading skills. Sixteen ABE programs that offered class-based instruction to Low-Intermediate-level learners were randomly assigned to either…

The purpose of this study was to identify subgroups of adult basic education (ABE) learners with different profiles of skills in the core reading components of decoding, word recognition, spelling, fluency, and comprehension. The analysis uses factor scores of those 5 reading components from on a prior investigation of the reliability and…

Adult literacy interventions often rely on models of reading validated with children or adult populations with a broad range of reading abilities. Such models do not fully satisfy the need for intervention research and development for adults with low literacy. Thus, the authors hypothesized that a model representing the relationship between…

The purpose of this study was to assess the role that phonological, orthographic, and contextual sources of information play in a group of adults who were learning to read compared to adult skilled readers. Participants read short paragraphs that contained a correct homophone, an incorrect homophone, or a spelling control. Target words were…

The purposes of this study were to investigate the reliability and construct validity of measures of reading component skills with a sample of adult basic education (ABE) learners, including both native and nonnative English speakers, and to describe the performance of those learners on the measures. Investigation of measures of reading components…

In order to examine whether any observed relationship between phonological awareness and reading ability in Down syndrome reflects the typical use of a phonologically based approach to reading, 12 children and young adults with Down syndrome were assessed for reading and phonological awareness skills. They were compared to a control group of 14…

The vast majority of American-born adults are exposed to written language from a very early age. Most Americans live in a print-based society where letters and words are everywhere! Drive, walk, or bike down any American street and you will see numerous eye-catching billboards, signs, and storefronts. Our towns, cities, neighborhoods, and homes…