The purpose of this memorandum is to clarify how funds provided under the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA), Title II of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), may be used to pay for the costs of child and dependent care and transportation when adult learners need this assistance to participate in adult education and…

The Australian Council for Educational Research's submission to the Australian Government Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training's Public Enquiry into Adult literacy and its importance highlights the importance of these skills to Australia's well-being and economy, and calls on the government to continue participation in an…

Straddling conventional education system boundaries between adult learners and children, and between employment-related and social benefits, family literacy programmes are not well recognised or supported in New Zealand's policy and funding environment. In this article, I reflect on my personal experience of redesigning the Whanau Ara Mua…

For more than a decade, the number of adults who cannot read has plateaued at around 32 million (HuffPost Books, 2014). According to the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, 67% of children are not proficient readers by the end of third grade (Smith, 2015). Given the high stakes attached to acquiring multiple literacies in order to access basic…

Over the past century in the U.S., stronger parental involvement in children's education has been encouraged and, more recently, codified into state teaching standards. Despite this, fully engaging parents as equal and respected partners has remained elusive. The quest seems particularly perplexing when attempting to enhance participation of…

The purpose of this guide is to provide recommendations for educators working with preliterate and beginning literacy level parents in family literacy and parent involvement programs. This guide is motivated by the growing presence of immigrant learners in schools and family literacy programs. Over 20% of public school children have immigrant…

This document contains Illinois' State Plan for Adult Education and Family Literacy under Title II of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 for July 1, 1999, through June 30, 2015. The plan is comprised of the following sections: (1) Eligible agency certifications and assurances; (2) Description of the steps to ensure direct and equitable access;…

What can family members learn about each other from writing together? What sense of community can develop between family members and across families as they write together? What areas of culture and community can be realized as families write together? These are the questions that fostered this current inquiry into a family writing project. Four…

Scotland provides an interesting context for studying adult literacy in that it is one of the few countries that explicitly acknowledge the idea of literacy as a social practice. By drawing on two initiatives we illustrate literacy learning derived from a mixture of social practice and critical literacy perspectives. Together they provide insights…

Literacy coalitions have been organized in various settings, from small towns and cities to counties and states. Coalitions are alliances "created for the purpose of joint action [and] drawn together by common interests." Literacy coalitions promote the power and pleasure of reading and stimulate community conversations about literacy.…

Each month, the Literacy Information and Communication System ("LINCS") will feature one of the three LINCS Resource Collections--Basic Skills, Program Management, and Workforce Competitiveness--and introduce research-based resources that practitioners can use in their adult and family literacy programs and classrooms. This edition features the…

The author argues for the importance of social capital effects being taken into account in assessing the effects of family literacy programs, and literacy programs generally. Focus upon short-term effects such as test scores, which can be considered as assessments of human capital, does not serve literacy education well. It would be helpful to…

Students need a strong foundation in reading, writing, math, and numeracy to be successful in GED preparation, in work readiness programs, and in post-secondary education and training. The resources in the Basic Skills Collection that will assist in providing this foundation include research articles, materials and curriculum based on research,…

This issue of "literacy.ca EXPRESS" presents an overview of literacy-related developments at the national level. This issue reports that: (1) The Office of Literacy and Essential Skills (OLES) has announced that in order to ensure a strong national network, it will provide "results- and performance-based multi-year contribution…

Following the results of the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) in 1996, there has been an upsurge of interest in adult literacy in New Zealand. This interest is reflected in a national adult literacy strategy with foundation learning as one of the government's six priorities for the postschool sector. One result of this policy change has…