While research exists on literacy focused on children in formal school, there is little evidence of how adult literacy is depicted in social practice from the perspective of what adults do in daily life. This study investigates the effectiveness of literacy teaching design integrating local culture discourse and practice to enhance the reading…

The roles of literacy skills in improving the livelihood of individuals have been extensively researched, but little is known about their impact on the lives of persons with disabilities. This qualitative case study tried to explore people with physical disabilities' beliefs about literacy skills' contributions to their livelihood and how these…

In the education context of sub-Saharan Africa, reading has received substantial attention in recent years. Reading skills and habits have been identified as a marker of success in formal education, particularly with the current international focus on reading achievement as a measure of learning. Meanwhile, adult literacy continues to be seen as…

"Practice engagement theory" (PET) posits that individuals' literacy proficiencies develop as a by-product of their engagement in everyday reading and writing practices and, reciprocally, that literacy proficiencies affect levels of engagement in reading and writing practices. This suggests that literacy training which increases…

Education has been identified as one of the most important ways to achieve national development. With 3 million non-literate adults in Lagos State, the commercial nerve center of the nation, radio becomes a veritable medium to teach such adults who, for several reasons including economic, do not have the opportunity of formal schooling. The study…

Adult literacy learners are characterized by their diversity, both in terms of educational histories and cognitive skill sets. Accounting for the specific strengths and weaknesses of each learner is vital to the assessment of literacy gains and optimization of educational systems. We examined pre- and post-difference scores on a component reading…

Adult literacy learners are characterized by their diversity, both in terms of educational histories and cognitive skill sets. Accounting for the specific strengths and weaknesses of each learner is vital to the assessment of literacy gains and optimization of educational systems. We examined pre- and post-difference scores on a component reading…

This quantitative study examined the current level of literacy skills of three cohorts of learners after they completed a non-formal basic literacy programme in 2017, 2018 and 2019. The purpose of the study, conducted in late 2019, was to identify major factors that influenced the maintenance of their levels of reading and calculating skills. The…

Adaptive learning technologies hold great promise for improving the reading skills of adults with low literacy, but adults with low literacy skills typically have low computer literacy skills. In order to determine whether adults with low literacy skills would be able to use an intelligent tutoring system for reading comprehension, we adapted a 44…

This paper presents findings by the "LEO Survey 2018 -- Living with Low Literacy." It found that in Germany 12.1% of the adult population (aged between 18 and 64 years) have low literacy skills. This paper questions existing assumptions about the everyday life of adults with low literacy. Based on variables on everyday practices, we work…

This article focuses on low-performing adult readers in the Scandinavian countries, seeking to identify and describe some of the literacy-related problems that they face. Following a presentation of the Reading Components Assessment (RCA) used in PIAAC (Program for International Assessment of Adult Competencies), we provide profiles for those…

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between reading literacy and age in an adult population aged 25 to 65 in Nordic countries using PIAAC 2012 data. More specifically, the study examined to what extent variations in the literacy proficiency of adults are explained by age and the recentness of qualifications when…

A common goal of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) is to provide learning environments that adapt to the varying abilities and characteristics of users. This type of adaptivity is possible only if the ITS has information that characterizes the learning behaviors of its users and can adjust its pedagogy accordingly. This study investigated an…

We developed a version of AutoTutor that helps struggling adult learners improve their comprehension strategies through conversational agents. We hypothesized that the accuracy and time to answer questions during the conversation could be diagnostic of their mastery of different reading comprehension components: words, textbase, situation model,…

Background: Educational qualifications and literacy skills are highly related. This is not surprising as it is one aim of educational systems to equip individuals with competencies necessary to take part in society. Because of this relationship educational qualifications are often used as a proxy for "human capital". However, from a…