Discussion on the advantages of integrating health literacy into adult education has primarily been theoretical and conceptual. There is a need for studies that assess the impact of adult education on health literacy. This study implemented a quasi-experimental design to explore whether basic adult instruction may constitute a venue for improving…

The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness and efficiency of teacher-directed and computer-assisted constant time delay strategies for teaching three students with moderate intellectual disability to read functional sight words. Target words were those found in recipes and were taught via teacher-delivered constant time delay or…

This paper will review the article entitled, "Shopping {For} Power: How Adult Literacy Learners Negotiate" [EJ756994] by authors Julie L. Ozanne, Natalie Ross Adkins, and Jennifer A. Sandlin. The authors argue that functional literacy in the United States is an important issue and needs to play a larger role in adult literacy programs.…

As many as 70 million Americans are functionally or marginally illiterate. Among the consequences: disproportionate numbers of illiterates are unemployed, 50 percent of inmates are illiterate, and illiterate parents are more likely to raise illiterate children. (SK)

Compares and comments on two recent national surveys of adult literacy standards in the United States and Canada, which move away from reporting the number of literates/illiterates and use levels of literacy proficiency. Notes that different concepts for literacy levels, different types of sampling, and different ways of measuring literacy and…

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the effects of American music, lyrics, vocabulary definitions, and song explanations during online music study on listening comprehension, vocabulary acquisition, and lifestyle literacy in Taiwanese ESL learners. One-hundred-eight ESL learners from 2 large comprehensive universities in Taiwan…

This critique of the television special "Is Anyone Out There Learning?" emphasizes three points: (1) CBS presented its own biases disguised as research; (2) television cannot teach literacy; and (3) CBS made education the scapegoat for our social crisis. All articles in this journal issue concern this television program. (SJL)

Reviews research on the average reading level in the United States, on how well the average American needs to read, and on what the average American can and does read. (MKM)