Argues that a successful adult basic education program should recognize the differences between younger students and adults, provide a setting in which adults' dignity is not threatened, carefully diagnose each adult's needs, and prescribe and implement a program to meet those needs. (FL)

A more flexible definition of literacy combines oral literacy, which focuses on the concrete, with written literacy, which is abstract. For W. Ong, F. DeAngelo, A. R. Luria, and others who have done research on oral and written cultures, their central concern is one of defining and describing the kind and form of consciousness that is represented…

Describes some of the confusion in defining literacy and recommends beginning functional literacy courses in elementary school and continuing them through high school. (TJ)

This study reviews the literature on past, present, and projected literacy requirements for United States Navy enlisted personnel, literacy skills of those entering the Navy, and activities developed to bridge the gap between the two. Through an examination of research reports, historical accounts, and instructional methods and materials, the…

Noting that the popular press and other media have purveyed much information and misinformation about the status of adult literacy in the United States, this paper focuses upon what is known about literacy levels and gives special attention to changes in literacy demands and to what is currently being done to meet those demands. The first section…

Research has specifically linked dropping out of school to reading disabilities and related problems. Research on reading as a cognitive task has focused on reading as an active process with three questions of concern: (1) How does the learner learn to identify the printed word?; (2) How does he or she discriminate one word from another word?; and…

The views and practices of literacy advocates who focus on workplace literacy foster an impoverished understanding of adult literacy and, ultimately, life itself. They reduce literacy to something that is "functional" in the reductive sense of serving someone else's ends as a functionary. A "functionally literate" person is a consumer of someone…

This paper reviews the research on the social dimensions of literacy acquisition and use, and applies conclusions to the provision of improved literacy training for adults and young people with hearing impairments. Discussion of the social context of literacy considers the ethnography of communication, literacy as cultural practice, and literacy…

This paper looks at computer technology's current and potential role in developing literacy in hearing impaired (HI) adults. First, the paper considers findings of adult literacy research including the national impact of illiteracy, functional literacy, communication and thinking skills, the whole language approach, the process approach to…