This article describes the author's reflections on a service-learning course at Penn State Lehigh Valley, a campus of The Pennsylvania State University. The author provides background about the university, the community need, and the service-learning course. Reflections from assessing two semesters of the service-learning course are provided.

A study examined the degree to which former students of Pennsylvania adult basic education (ABE) programs are maintaining and using the literacy skills that they developed while participating in ABE programs. During the study, researchers examined former students enrolled in ABE programs in 1974, 1976, and 1978. After analyzing demographic data…

This project was developed to increase attendance at inservices and workshops that are provided to continue the training of tutors in the South Pittsburgh office of the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council (GPLC). A questionnaire was designed and mailed to all (about 20) tutors in the area to obtain input about how prepared they felt, and whether…

The International English Training for Adults Program is an intensive ESL (English as a Second Language) program for foreign students. Students in the program take 18 hours of classes per week, including Conversation Partners, a 3-hour course designed to give students an opportunity to practice using English with Americans in a structured,…

A project was conducted to redesign the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) Bureau of Adult Basic and Literacy Education required student tracking form to provide for better student tracking. The Student Intake and Data form supplied by the PDE from program year 1996-97 was used as a point of comparison, and evaluations of this form by…

A project was undertaken to develop a model that adult basic and literacy education (ABLE) programs throughout Pennsylvania could use as a framework to develop and implement collaborative family literacy programs in cooperation with human services agencies and community-based organizations, including providers of Even Start, Head Start, and other…

The Pennsylvania Action Research Network project was initiated in 1995-1996 to provide Pennsylvania literacy educators with the following: a better method for taking published research findings and testing and adapting them in their own classrooms; a way to study their own research ideas on a daily-action basis; and a systematic way to share and…

Many volunteer literacy tutors in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, have not completed their 1-year tutoring commitment. Consequently, an action research project was undertaken to determine the causes of the high tutor turnover and to identify ways of improving the tutor retention rate. All tutors involved in the program from 1998 onward were asked…

The Southwestern Pennsylvania Area Labor-Management Committee (SPALMC), which serves approximately 180 adult students annually, was experiencing inconsistencies in performance among its adult education staff. The problems included teachers arriving late 50% of the time and individualizing instruction only 70% of the time. To remedy these problems,…

This independent learning packet, which is intended for adult literacy tutors, reviews the literature regarding adults with learning disabilities. The packet begins with a learning disabilities pretest. Presented next is the literature review, which includes information on the following aspects of learning disabilities: definition and historical…

A project was conducted to determine the need for and to create a distance learning-based staff development program for adult literacy instructors throughout Pennsylvania. Each of Pennsylvania's 306 adult literacy programs was sent a survey regarding their staff members' access to and knowledge about distance learning technology. Of the 100…

This independent learning packet, which is designed for administrators, teachers, counselors, and tutors in Pennsylvania's Region 7 Tri-Valley Literacy Staff Development area as well as for their adult students, examines the following seven problems encountered by students: the job market, child care, single parenting/parenting skills, divorce,…

Because an English-as-a-second-language (ESL) teacher in Pennsylvania observed from the intake questionnaires completed by her students that many ESL students lack short- and long-term goal-setting skills, she undertook an action research project to help ESL students develop the short- and long-term goal-setting skills needed for educational,…

Pennsylvania's family literacy programs were subjected to a statewide evaluation in 1999-2000. Data were collected through focus groups with parents, a survey of staff in community agencies and organizations, and analyses of program data and the findings of selected assessments administered to adults and children involved in the program.…