Over the last 11 years, the Literacy Action Center, a traditional community-based adult literacy organization that focuses on educating English-speaking adults with low functioning literacy skills, has seen a transformation in the enthusiasm of the learners. The Literacy Action Center is also a learner-centered organization driven by the wants and…

This newsletter, published five times a year, features articles on issues of concern to adult, family, and youth literacy practitioners, as well as recommended resources, announcements, and teaching strategies. This issue contains: (1) Using a License to Drive Improvement: Professional Development in Massachusetts (Jon Steinberg); (2) Building…

This paper explores limits and possibilities for students' book bags as data sources in educational research. A discussion of the feasibility of book bags as data sources is followed by a brief description of an ethnographic research project focused on literacy and schooling in families of General Education Diploma (GED) students. The larger study…

We obtained data from 124 volunteer instructors in adult literacy, using an instrument developed to assess what the volunteers knew about providing reading instruction to adults. Results showed that volunteers with bachelor's degrees or higher and those who had teacher's certificates were significantly more knowledgeable about providing reading…

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of two adult basic reading programs, Direct Instruction Corrective Reading Decoding and Laubach Literacy, on the reading achievement of incarcerated male adults (n = 27) in an Alabama prison. Participants were tutors and students taking part in a reading tutoring program at the facility. The…

QEd is a five-issue series for the adult education community--literacy educators, paraprofessionals, program directors, and volunteers. QEd brings ideas and information from the expanding scientific research base on how adults learn to read. This first issue tells the story of how researchers are using the high quality, scientific standards that…

The Quicken Trust has been working in Kabubbu since 2000. In that time it has created a primary school, a health centre and laboratory, teachers' and nurses' housing, community housing, clean water supplies, farming and work initiatives, an adult literacy centre and library, and a secondary school. Over 400 orphaned children are being educated and…

Catalyst, a quarterly newsletter from the Institute's Communications Office, contains news, information, and features about the programs and services of the National Institute for Literacy. This issue contains the following articles: (1) Spanish-Language Publication for Parents of Young Readers Among the Institute's New Titles; (2) Director's…

Notes similarities in Paulo Freire's literacy method, William S. Gray's model of reading, and H. Alan Robinson's recommendations for reading instruction based on psycholinguistics. (MKM)

Considers motivations of adult illiterates involved in literacy programs, and gives examples of available programs. Describes difficulties, frustrations, and rewards for individuals completing such programs. Includes an estimate of the size of the adult literacy problem. (DHP)

Describes the techniques used by the tutor of an illiterate firefighter to help him master in one semester a college textbook on emergency medical procedures. (WD)

This May 2006 issue of "Federal Literacy Facts" contains the following sections: (1) Canadian Council on Learning Releases Learning Index; (2) Learning Index Highlights Adult Literacy as Key Challenge; (3) Literacy Doesn't Make the Federal Budget's Priority List; (4) Community Still Waiting for Federal Call for Literacy Proposals; (5) AG…

This study analyzed the relation between volunteer tutor training and reading instruction in 4 adult literacy programs. The data focus on tutors' choices of reading materials and strategies for assisting in the development of comprehension and word identification skills. Tutor training did not always transfer to practice, and it did not always…

Volunteer participation in adult literacy programs can be encouraged by (1) stressing the goals of helping individuals and long-term social value, (2) gearing expectations to students' abilities and progress, (3) emphasizing pragmatic methods to achieve students' goals, (4) stressing teaching methods adapted from daily interaction, and (5)…

This research investigates the amount of metalinguistic knowledge one can assume when teaching an adult to read. In addition, it questions the source of this awareness and whether it relates to general cognitive development, to schooling, or specifically to the act of learning to read. The subjects were sixty monolingual adults enrolled in a…