Given the large gap between the millions of adults in need of basic literacy skills and the shortage of teachers, tutors, and funds to serve them, computer-assisted instruction (CAI) has the potential to reduce the gap. The merits of CAI include its holding power, provision of a positive learning environment, opportunity to learn about computers,…

Although there may not be a direct causal relationship between illiteracy and crime a look at the broader picture points to a significant connection. As many as 50 percent of adults in federal and state prisons cannot read or write at all; the majority of prisoners are poor; blacks, comprising only 12 percent of the general population, make up…

The role of higher education institutions may be changing as the public becomes increasingly disquieted by the enormity of the adult illiteracy problem. Recognizing the need to help growing numbers of semiliterate freshmen catch up, colleges and universities have set up centers to provide basic skills programs, counseling, and other services.…

Unions are natural providers of basic skills instruction. They are in daily workplace contact with their membership, are trusted to work on members' behalf, and speak the language of the worker. Unions are trying to address the needs of illiterate workers through collective bargaining arrangements in which employers contribute a percentage of…

This report describes certain assumptions and tentative conclusions made by an Advisory Group of the Adult Literacy and Basic Skills Unit (ALBSU) about work with the mentally handicapped from a nonspecialist perspective. With the basic education organizer in mind, the report addresses six major issues. A definition of the term mentally handicapped…

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 brief presents summary information and contacts/references for a sampling of programs and resources that have been developed to support small business workplace literacy projects. Twenty-two contacts are included: Finger Lakes Regional Education Center for Economic Development; Development Assistance Corporation; Wayne Community College;…

International Literacy Year, 1990, is intended to alert readers to the persistence of illiteracy. The challenge of illiteracy can only be met by concerted action on the part of all those concerned, acting together to conquer ignorance, eliminate poverty, promote peace, and assert the solidarity and interdependence of nations and peoples. As early…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has acted to provide a new perspective with its 1985 survey of the literacy skills of young Americans aged 21-25. In the spring of 1985, NAEP began screening 40,000 households to identify a nationally representative sample of between 3,600 and 5,000 young adults aged 21-25 and several hundred…

There are 900 million illiterate people in the world. Because of reflective insights and creative research during the last two decades, the literacy process is no longer conceived as a training process that concentrates exclusively on implanting specific mechanical skills. It is now recognized as an educational process, as an unfolding of human…

The gap in literacy rates between women and men continually broadens. In 1985, 63 percent of the world's approximately 1,000 million illiterate people were female, compared to 60 percent in 1970 and 58 percent in 1960. A process of social change, including community involvement and mobilization in favor of women's literacy, is needed to sustain…

As the numbers of migrant farmworkers active in the United States increases, so does the need to provide effective literacy programs for them and their families. Homestate and upstream programs are designed to meet the needs of migrant workers. The paper provides examples of successful programs that involve whole migrant families in literacy…

Changes in colleges of further education over recent years, including the involvement of a much wider range of students, mean that provision of basic skills has become an important issue for most colleges in England and Wales. Some colleges provide no basic skills support for students; others have some support for students; and still others also…

Ohio's mission in the 1990s is to prepare youth and adults to make informed choices and to enter, compete, and advance successfully in the changing work world. One way to measure Ohio's progress is to examine the Ohio vocational system and its direct relationship to the National Education Goals presented in America 2000. Goal 1 is readiness for…

This report is an overview of the changes occurring in society and the workplace today, with a prediction of how those changes will affect employment in the future in the United States and especially in Indiana. The report is organized in five sections. The first section summarizes the demographic, economic, and social changes that are presently…