The International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) was a collaborative effort by seven governments and three intergovernmental organizations to describe and compare the literacy skills of people from Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. Each country drew a probability sample from which results…

This curriculum module contains lesson plans and application activities that were developed to help adult students master the writing skills needed to earn a general high school equivalency diploma. Included in the module are materials designed to help students demonstrate effective writing and master specific objectives in the following writing…

This volume, Interim Report No. 2 in a 3-year study, establishes the need for job-linked literacy programs that respond to technological and organizational change, outlines the character of successful programs, and demonstrates these programs' potential value. The volume is divided into two parts: report and case studies. The introduction to the…

Workplace literacy and basic skills may be defined as skills needed by employees at work: reading, writing, math, and problem solving. Workplace literacy and skill requirements are based on the needs of each workplace and its workers. These skills are important because the work force needs to be highly skilled and adaptable to compete in a global…

This publication describes basic skills improvement programs and activities ongoing throughout the United States. The guide is organized into two sections. The first section contains program descriptions and hands-on materials from 25 elementary and secondary programs across the nation that have been selected for inclusion in the National…

The manual is intended for training workshops on program and curriculum development for the post-literacy stages, since many countries successful in literacy work find that even greater challenges await them as erstwhile illiterates emerge from literacy classes as new literates. The emphasis is on programs and curricula to help new literates…

This document reports on the Association for Community Based Education's (ACBE's) 14th annual conference. The first section is an introduction by the conference co-coordinators. The other sections describe conference sessions on the following subjects: (1) ACBE's literacy program; (2) advocacy methods, models, and resource development; (3) the…

This document explains an intergenerational literacy project, established by the Kenan Trust in 1988, in which more than 300 adults and children have participated at 7 pilot sites in North Carolina and Kentucky and for which an additional 22 sites in 11 states are planned. The first section relates one participant's experience with the project.…

It was not until the end of the 1970s that public debate on the problem of functional illiteracy among adults began in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). Even afterward, Germans were reluctant to admit that illiteracy was a problem in their country. Literacy education efforts began at the local level, and the first national conference on adult…

CHOICES, a literacy program for homeless families, piloted a program at the Women's Emergency Shelter in Champaign, Illinois and later expanded its services to A Woman's Place, a domestic violence shelter, in Urbana, Illinois. The CHOICES program offered weekly language activities for the children and gave mothers information about developing…

This collection of papers focuses on literacy and the special educational needs of speakers of English as a second language (ESL). In a paper entitled "Ethnic Minority Educational Needs in the 1980s," Gurnam Heire examines some of the changes in employment and training that have taken place over the past few years and how these affect the…

The Washington State English as a Second Language (ESL) Master Plan, part of the Adult Refugee Project, is designed for use by program administrators and instructors in planning institutional curricula. Program goals are the following: (1) enable refugees to reach a level of English usage and cultural familiarity that makes them employable; (2)…

The bulk of this issue consists of five articles providing insight into various phases of adult continuing education. "The Meliorist Position as a Philosophic Base for Adult Education" (Gordon Clay Godbey) examines these questions about meliorism: should we accept as natural improvement of the human condition, the constant wars, the…

From 1910 to 1935 a campaign was waged in the southern United States to eradicate adult illiteracy. This program was primarily based on volunteers, and it revolved around night, summer, or cotton mill schools that were often termed Opportunity Schools. Many parallels can be drawn to current efforts to address the problem of functional illiteracy…

This manual is designed to aid volunteer tutors to use the LEX [language experience] Process for English Reading Instruction Manual (see note) to provide survival and functional English as a second language (ESL) to immigrant and minority people. The Process employs the methods of "language experience" in response to the widely varied language…