The 1988-89 Highlands Educational Literacy Project (HELP) in southwest Virginia was initially designed to provide local volunteer tutors with intensive training in the Laubach one-to-one method of teaching reading. HELP was a cooperative effort of community service agencies, church and civic groups, and interested individuals to provide free…

Illiteracy is a serious problem for older people, particularly for older minorities. Of the 23 million adults in the United States classified as functionally illiterate, 44 percent are over 50, and those 60 and over account for about one-third of the totally illiterate population. Being illiterate to whatever degree diminishes the employment…

Conference presentations of four individuals are included. The first presentation, by a new reader (Marty Finsterbusch), discusses the diversity of the illiterate population and urges new readers to become actively involved in the instruction and administration of literacy programs. Advantages include improved recruitment, improved communication…

Illiteracy is a serious problem in the United States, and Hispanics have substantially higher rates of illiteracy than any other major population group: by the traditional measure of literacy, the completion of five years of schooling, 11.9 percent of Hispanics 25 years and older could be considered illiterate, compared to 1.8 percent of the…

These 10 modules provide job search training for adults and youths. The activities can be modified for nonreaders, those with limited academic skills, unemployed professionals, persons with limited work experience, potential dropouts and other unemployed youth, older job seekers, and persons with mental handicaps. Introductory materials are…

Countless reports have appeared during the past decade documenting the United States' failure to educate its citizens. These studies indicate that 27 million adult Americans have left school either unable to read and write, or unable to read sufficiently well to understand the most basic newspaper articles or official forms. These problems have…

This report expands upon a policy resolution passed unanimously at the 53rd Annual Conference of Mayors in 1985. The first part of the report, a policy statement, points out the magnitude of the adult illiteracy problem and of some of the issues involved, and briefly indicates how various segments of society can contribute to a solution. The…

This guidebook is intended to aid adult basic education teachers in the selection of audiovisual resources designed to teach living skills to low-functioning adults. The first section describes effective use of audiovisuals, preparation of a lesson incorporating audiovisuals, and lesson plan uses of media. Two audiovisual evaluation forms are…

This monograph presents what illiterate and formerly illiterate adults have said regarding what it is like to be unable to read in a world that presumes everyone is literate, and of experiences they have had while acquiring the ability to read and write. In later chapters the authors, who were involved in the Vermont Adult Basic Education (ABE)…

The present research was a field experiment exploring the relationship of literacy to certain modernization variables. Data were collected in five rural communities in Minas Gerais, Brazil, in July 1966. The communities were matched as closely as possible on population, literacy rate, distance to an urban center, community institutional…

Intended for designers of culture-oriented visual materials for use in functional literacy and development communication in different cultures and countries, this manual is one in a series of training monographs on literacy in development. The three chapter titles are: "Understanding Visual Literacy,""Acquiring Visual…

Conducted in Wisconsin, this study evaluated two literacy programs--the Mott Basic Language Skills Program and the Sullivan "Programmed Reading for Adults"-- in order to develop a more effective adult basic education (ABE) curriculum. Attention was also given to relationships between selected student characteristics and measured…

As an evolving program of action research, this Project for Adult Literacy focused on the complex problems of adult illiteracy and its mitigation in a major urban community (Boston, Massachusetts). It was undertaken to teach reading; assess the use of volunteers in adult literacy education; evaluate two reading methods for use with adult…

A follow-up study was made of 83 dyslexic job trainees who were given reading and writing remediation as part of a manpower training program. The purpose of the study was to determine if, three years later, they had regressed or continued to function on a higher socioeconomic level than before undergoing training. When training began 69% of the…

With welfare reform now a reality, policy makers and employers must grapple with the employment impediments that keep much of the welfare population out of the work force. The foremost problem is illiteracy. One-third of welfare recipients are functionally illiterate; another third possesses only marginally better reading skills, still unable to…