Six demonstration projects were conducted in England to identify and help meet the basic communication needs of individuals who embarked on work-related skills training. Unemployed adults were divided into two strands. Strand A concentrated on those adults who without significant help with basic communication skills would be unable to reach the…

Organizations and groups responsible for the bulk of the nation's adult basic skills provision are currently reaching an estimated 9-10 percent of the needy population. This represents an increase from the 7-8 percent reached in 1984. Adult Basic Education (ABE), the largest single program in the nation, has shown an overall growth in enrollment…

This document describes the British Adult Literacy and Basic Skills Unit (ALBSU) because information on the ALBSU experience might be useful to planners working to establish a similar national literacy center in the United States. (The ALBSU was formed in London in the mid-1970s to support the BBC's television-based national adult literacy…

The field of cognitive science (as represented, for instance, by intergenerational literacy programs) offers new ways to think about increasing cognitive abilities, which is particularly important in view of the disappointing outcomes of many intervention programs that do not seem to make their participants more knowledgeable or better thinkers.…

The National Child Development Study is a longitudinal survey of all people who were born in the week of March 3-9, 1958 in England, Scotland, and Wales--approximately 17,000 people. A project used information collected from 12,500 of these people through interviews in 1981 when they were 23 years old. The project sought to determine (1) what…

This booklet provides guidelines for setting up workplace programs to strengthen employee basic skills. It is intended to help employers who are contemplating the establishment of basic skills training programs and those with programs already in place who seek to improve their current designs. Part I addresses the basic skills problem in the…

Twenty percent of adult Americans function only with difficulty with necessary every day literacy skills, almost two-thirds of the 800 million illiterate adults in the world are females, and the number of women who cannot read or write has risen steadily in the past 10 years. The inservice program described in this document involved a team of…

The Appalachian area of Mississippi is inhabited by a great number of adults who have never read a newspaper. Although numerous newspapers are printed within Appalachia, many adults cannot comprehend the local newspapers. The problems of non-communication, low educational level, and isolation of these people are concerns of the Itawamba Junior…

There is a great need for adult basic education in Appalachia Mississippi. The Itawamba Junior College (IJC) Vocational and Technical Adult Education Department is presently meeting the needs of a small majority of the adults who need additional education. In an agreement with Town and Country Mobile Homes manufacturers, the Mississippi State…

The Baltimore Learning Center is designed to provide functionally illiterate adults with the basic skills they need to compete for jobs. The Center's success is largely due to PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations), a computer-aided instruction system that lets the student work at his own pace. (MF)

Although adult basic education has been profoundly influenced by the concept of functional literacy, definition of this concept is clouded by false assumptions. From this critique of the economic approach to literacy emerges a new approach: locating literacy in its social context and relating it to information needs and access. (SK)

The Basic Skills Learning System is a modularized network of computer assisted tutorials, drills, tests, printed materials, and videotaped presentations directed at improving the basic reading, math, and language skills of adults who have mastered these skills at a level above third grade but below the eighth. (Author)

The author examines the potentialities of bypassing literacy in efforts to bring education and development to Third World countries, concluding that literacy is essential for human and economic development. He cites various perspectives on literacy and development (232 references), and analyses alternative strategies for literacy campaigns,…

A learning skills center was set up in Flint Hills Area Vocational-Technical School, Emporia, Kansas, to provide remedial instruction in basic skills leading to student success in the regular vocational program. Group instruction, individualized instruction, and multimedia aids are used to help the participants (high school students and adults)…

Identifies dominant meanings of literacy within contemporary proposals for educational reform in North America, Britain, and Australasia, examining the meanings and noting the serious imbalance within current reform visions for literacy education. The paper examines four types of literacy constructions (lingering basics, new basics, elite…