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…

Adult learners with low literacy skills compose a highly heterogeneous population in terms of demographic variables, educational backgrounds, knowledge and skills in reading, self-efficacy, motivation etc. They also face various difficulties in consistently attending offline literacy programs, such as unstable worktime, transportation…

The global agenda for sustainable development has centred lifelong learning on UNESCO's Education 2030 Framework for Action. The study described in this article aimed to examine international and intergenerational variations in literacy skills gaps within the context of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For this purpose, the…

Millions of U.S. adults lack the literacy skills needed for most living-wage jobs. We investigated one particular comprehension process for these adults: generating predictive inferences. If a sentence says that someone falls from a 14th-story roof, a reader should infer almost certain death. On any test of comprehension, there are two dependent…

To obtain a fuller picture of the efficacy of reading instruction programs for adult literacy learners, gains by individual students were examined in a sample (n = 148) in which weak to moderate gains at the group level had been obtained in response to tutoring interventions that focused on strengthening basic decoding and fluency skills of low…

This essay offers a commentary on how the relationship between language and literacy practices in and out of school has been conceptualized. It draws upon two new books in the field. Shirley Brice Heath's new book, "Words at Work and Play: Three Decades in Family and Community Life," which makes use of rich ethnographic accounts of…

We statistically examined the oral reading fluency of 295 adults with low literacy by analyzing total words read per minute and word error rates. We identified four fluency-ability groupings based on standardized assessments of reading-related skills (phonemic awareness, word recognition, vocabulary, comprehension, and general ability). Our…

In this study, confirmatory factor analyses were used to examine the interrelationships among latent factors of the simple view model of reading comprehension (word recognition and language comprehension) and hypothesized additional factors (vocabulary and reading fluency) in a sample of 476 adult learners with low literacy levels. The results…

This study discusses the general plan of action for the United States Office of Education's program for school-based right to read centers. The major goal of the program is to increase functional literacy so that most citizens will be able to function as productive adults. This study describes the basic assumptions and objectives of the program,…

A collection of reports on literacy and literacy issues includes a variety of perspectives and descriptions of diverse programs and is divided into three sections. The first examines broad questions of literacy: "On the Study of Literacy" (David Bendor-Samuel); "Linguistics and Literacy" (Gloria Kindell); and "Literacy in…

The first section of this paper reports the results of numerous literacy studies in which adults were tested on a variety of tasks, including filling out forms, answering questions about newspaper classified advertisements, and dealing with certain facets of consumer economics. The percentage of adults in the United States reported to be literate…

Only excellent programs in literacy education can motivate an adult to develop or increase his reading skills; the direct economic advantages as well as the pleasures of reading must be made apparent. (JB)

An appreciation for the diverse meanings ascribed to the concept of literacy is fundamental to the affirmation of literacy in human lives. Literacy is something interpreted. Its presence is visible in lives, yet literacy remains an invisible, measureless phenomenon. In the fullness of being literate, there is humanness-wakefulness, liveliness and…

This anthology, prepared by adapting existing material, contains a synoptic review of the Human Resources Research Organization research program on literacy in relation to job performance. In several of the chapters, the adaptations include the addition of new material to integrate and interpret the findings from the various phases of the research…

Article is a study on the return of adults to illiteracy after dropping out of adult education programs. It seeks to determine the causes and extent of this problem. (GB)