Many adult students have basic reading skills, but they are inexperienced readers who need to learn skills beyond the basics to equip them for success in college and career. How do educators face such adults with optimism and an eagerness to help improve specific reading skills so that these students can read and understand a variety of materials?…

We statistically examined the oral reading fluency of 295 adults with low literacy by analyzing total words read per minute and word error rates. We identified four fluency-ability groupings based on standardized assessments of reading-related skills (phonemic awareness, word recognition, vocabulary, comprehension, and general ability). Our…

This multiple case study explored how the literate experiences of six African American men influenced their perceptions of and engagement with a community-based adult basic education and literacy (ABEL) program in a large northeastern city. The theoretical framework included a social practices view of literacy and a constructivist view of…

This study examined a Korean immigrant adult learning program, the Reading Facilitator Training program, at a Korean immigrant church in Los Angeles, CA, in 2008. The purpose of this research was to discover how Korean immigrant adults learn in a way that has meaning and brings about change and how the local church can function as a safe learning…

The theme for the 59th annual conference of the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers was Making a Difference in Our Diverse Communities. The meeting took place in Costa Mesa, California in 2015. In the first section of the Yearbook, Dr. J. Helen Perkins's presidential address shared the story of her journey as an educator and how it…

The purpose of this multicase study was to explore with five students perceptions of their learning experiences and challenges faced while enrolled in a dental assisting course that is integrated with reading. The study was rooted in a constructivist framework both as a research paradigm and as a theoretical perspective regarding adult learning.…

The National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL) presents, alongside the Goodling Institute for Research in Family Literacy at Penn State University, these proceedings from the research strand at the 22nd National Conference on Family Literacy. Through these sessions, NCFL's conference continues to provide the latest research in family education…

Low literacy levels in adult learners pose an educational and public health challenge to practitioners and the scientific community. Increasing demands placed on literacy can limit opportunities in the workplace and access to health-related resources, negatively affecting public health. Current estimates from the National Center for Education…

In this study, confirmatory factor analyses were used to examine the interrelationships among latent factors of the simple view model of reading comprehension (word recognition and language comprehension) and hypothesized additional factors (vocabulary and reading fluency) in a sample of 476 adult learners with low literacy levels. The results…

Current debates concerning effective professional development for teachers of early reading have focused on the potential benefits of a literacy coach in providing sustained support and guidance for teachers' learning from a professional development program. In this study, we compare the response of first-grade teachers to a model of professional…

This paper reports on the Video Viewing Task (VVT), an assessment designed to measure teachers' developing understanding of two reading comprehension instruction approaches: Reciprocal Teaching (Palincsar, A. S. & Brown, A. L. (1984). Reciprocal teaching of comprehension-fostering and comprehension-monitoring activities. "Cognition and…

Educators are inclined to think that the words they use in their discourses about policy, research, and practice mean what they mean them to mean. It is just as clear, however, that such discourses ideologically produce and reproduce relations of power that benefit some and disadvantage others. This essay begins an argument that educators need to…

Although several school districts in a southern US state use a three-tiered Response to Intervention (RtI) model to supplemental core reading instruction and positively impact student achievement, the model appears to have had nominal impact. The theoretical foundation for this study is anchored in a constructivist approach to education. Three…

Randomized field trials were used to examine the impact of the Teacher Study Group (TSG), a professional development model, on first grade teachers' reading comprehension and vocabulary instruction, their knowledge of these areas, and the comprehension and vocabulary achievement of their students. The multisite study was conducted in three large…

Teachers of adult learners of English as a second language (ESL) have increasingly encountered students with limited literacy skills in their native language and/or in English. Yet, many of these practitioners are not adequately equipped to meet the challenge of teaching reading, especially beginning reading skills. Although there is a paucity of…