Explores the role of computer-assisted activities in functional language learning. Suggests that computers appear to be a valuable tool for facilitating language use within the classroom. When used appropriately, computers can provide a genuine, real-world context for children's explorations through their journey to becoming competent literacy…

Examines the relationship between level of schooling and literacy attainment in four rural communities in Guatemala. The authors first identify the grade at which most children become literate and then estimate the net contribution of schooling to literacy. They found that most children became literate with between three and four years of…

Results are presented from two studies involving 190 primary and high school students and 146 primary students with reading difficulties. These studies contributed toward the development of five 200 word standardized passages which may be employed interchangeably to monitor the performance of students with reading difficulties towards achieving…

Provisions and purposes of four federal human resource development programs were reviewed, and options regarding the definition of basic skills and literacy were analyzed. The four programs were as follows: Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) program, Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), Adult Education Act (AEA), and the Carl D. Perkins…

The Kentucky Adult Literacy Survey, which was based on the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS), was conducted to determine the prose, document, and quantitative literacy levels of the state's adult population. Trained interviewers conducted hour-long interviews with 1,492 Kentucky citizens between the ages of 16 and 65 who had been selected…

This report analyzes the incidence of learning disabilities among individuals in Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) and other employment training programs and the impact of these learning disabilities on programmatic approaches to functional literacy assessment and training. The report examines the proportion of target individuals likely to be…

An ethnographic study of five clerk-typists and five applications clerks in a large federal agency included observations, interviews, and a 3-week job literacy program. Both in their performance on job tasks and in the tests and exercises in the literacy program, the clerks demonstrated a number of strategies by which they quickly locate…

This report supports amending the proposed Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Rule on Over-the Counter (OTC) Drug Advertising to insure better protection for children, illiterate populations, the deaf and the blind, from advertising on the air-waves. Several points are addressed: (1) the difficulties of combining the rule making schedules of the Food…

Designed by the Monroe County Library System as a cooperative venture with Model Cities and the Adult Basic Education Department of the City School District of Rochester, New York, the project explored the feasibility of using socially oriented programs and area canvass by library aides to uncover communication needs and recruit enrolless for an…

As part of the International Adult Literacy Survey, the literacy levels of older adults in the Netherlands were investigated. A sample of 918 adults aged 50-75 was tested on prose, document, and quantitative scales; 40 older adults were interviewed to determine in what contexts they experience literacy problems and what kinds of coping strategies…

Efficacy research on video based instruction for children with autism is a promising area for practitioners and researchers. Researchers are successfully using video to teach a variety of social and functional skills. This literature review synthesizes these findings and examines critical features of each of the studies that contribute most to the…

A 6-month study examined the attitudes of older, low-literate adults toward using computers to learn to read and tried to determine the effectiveness of Penn State Adult Literacy Courseware for beginning readers with older, low-literate adults at a community-based senior center. The students were 10 black adults, aged 66 to 86 and educated at the…

Community-based, or inmate-run, literacy programs are a significant alternative to literacy programs run by those outside the correctional institution. Such programs provide meaningful self-involvement and opportunity for the development of problem-solving skills for the inmates. Beginning in the spring of 1984, the Institute for the Study of…

The Job Skills Education Program (JSEP) is a computer-based, functional basic skills curriculum and instructional delivery system originally designed for the U.S. Department of the Army. The U.S. Department of Labor funded an exploration of the feasibility of increasing the use of JSEP as a workplace literacy tool for employers. It was found that…

This study determined the magnitude of disparity between men and women in China in relation to illiteracy and occupational status. Region and ethnicity are used as control variables. The data collected are from a 10 percent sampling of the 1982 census; the total sample size includes a population of 100,380,000 nationwide. The census questionnaire…