A randomized control trial compared the effects of two kinds of vocabulary instruction on component reading skills of adult struggling readers. Participants seeking alternative high school diplomas received 8 h of scripted tutoring to learn forty academic vocabulary words embedded within a civics curriculum. They were matched for language…

Studies of the teaching practices used in adult reading programs suggest that these practices often reflect the personal perspectives of teachers on factors that contribute to less-skilled reading development. In this study, 19 adult reading teachers were interviewed to explore their perspectives on how adults become less-skilled readers and the…

Undoubtedly, it is every teacher's life quest to find the best way to teach; there are no universal formulas to accomplish that. A committed teacher is a life-long learner, which shows why being an educator is not an easy career. A teacher is indeed like a candle that lights the students' path as it consumes itself. Such abnegation comes at a high…

This paper examines the different views about the definition of "literacy" and how it is applied in the Zambian context. It argues that the absence of a contextual definition of literacy or illiteracy has raised some doubt on the magnitude of the problem and the extent to which success has been achieved through various literacy…

This edited collection presents a study of innovation in teaching, learning, assessment and teacher development practices in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The thirteen research-based chapters in this collection examine recent innovations in English language teaching, drawing on classroom, administrative and learning experiences from…

The ageing labour force, and concerns with productivity and social inclusion have driven foundation skills policy development in Australia and internationally (SCOTESE 2012; Newton 2016). However, little existing literature focusses on the relationships between foundation skills, community education providers and regional location. Thus, this…

A common goal of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) is to provide learning environments that adapt to the varying abilities and characteristics of users. To do this, researchers must identify the learning patterns exhibited by those interacting with the system. In the present work, we use clustering analysis to capture learning patterns in over…

Millions of U.S. adults lack the literacy skills needed for most living-wage jobs. We investigated one particular comprehension process for these adults: generating predictive inferences. If a sentence says that someone falls from a 14th-story roof, a reader should infer almost certain death. On any test of comprehension, there are two dependent…

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.…

The present study explored the reading skills of a sample of 48 adults enrolled in a basic education program in northern Florida, United States. Previous research has reported on reading component skills for students in adult education settings, but little is known about eye movement patterns or their relation to reading skills for this…

This study examines an assessment strategy used with incarcerated literacy learners. The strategy employed a traditional set of reading tests as well as open-ended interviews. Two stances--increasingly reconciled in the reading community--framed this assessment: (a) a post-positivist stance that promotes a normed, component-level assessment of…

After developing an intelligent tutoring system (ITS), or any other class of learning environments, one of the first questions that should be asked is whether the system was effective in helping students learn the targeted skills or subject matter. In this study, we employed two educational data mining models (Additive Factor Model, AFM and…

In recent years, robots have increasingly been implemented as tutors in both first- and second-language education. The field of robot-assisted language learning (RALL) is developing rapidly. Studies have been published targeting different languages, age groups, and aspects of language and using different robots and methodologies. The present…

In 1966, Joan Ganz Cooney was a documentary producer at Channel 13 when Lloyd Morrisett, then Vice President at the Carnegie Corporation of New York, offered her an opportunity that would change the landscape of children's media forever. The Carnegie Corporation provided funding for a three-month study during which Joan traveled the country to…

This is Part II of a two-part report on an assessment strategy used with incarcerated literacy learners. As described in Part I, the strategy employed a traditional set of reading tests as well as open-ended interviews. Two stances--increasingly reconciled in the reading community--framed this assessment: (a) a post-positivist stance that promotes…