As many as 70 million Americans are functionally or marginally illiterate. Among the consequences: disproportionate numbers of illiterates are unemployed, 50 percent of inmates are illiterate, and illiterate parents are more likely to raise illiterate children. (SK)

Adults who cannot read are receiving help through a special program operated in New York State. This program is conducted on a volunteer basis; that is, only those who want to improve the level of their literacy are accepted as participants. (CK)

Strategies (chiefly compulsory schooling and literacy campaigns) for combatting illiteracy are compared, and differences between functional and traditional literacy are discussed. (LY)

When children are taught to read, they are forced to erase all the concepts that they have developed up to that stage because the schools of today are unfortunately only interested in teaching their pupils to recognize printed words. (CK)

The problem of functional illiteracy emerged in world science in the second half of the twentieth century, when it became obvious that in and of itself, the number of years a person spends in schooling does not guarantee a high level of professional and personal literacy. The problem was not manifested in the same way in the different national…

An important area in the learning and development of individuals with disabilities is the acquisition of independent, age-appropriate leisure skills. Three adults with autism and mental retardation were taught to access specific Internet sites using backward chaining and most-to-least intrusive prompting. The number of independent steps completed…

Definitions of literacy that focus solely on reading words provide too narrow a framework for many students with severe disabilities. Obtaining information from the environment may be accomplished in a variety of modes, such as visual literacy, which is the ability to discern meaning conveyed through images. A component of visual literacy is…

Functional literacy is defined as that educational level comparable to the eight years of schooling required of children in the Yugoslavian elementary system.'' Census results show that 19.7 percent of the population of age ten or over is illiterate. This paper considers research findings on the conceptualization and organization of elementary…

Argues that there is no convincing proof from empirical evidence that standards of literacy in Western Australia are worse than they were 25 to 65 years ago. Denounces empirical measures of standards of literacy as profoundly unreliable. (AEA)

This paper focuses on successes and failures in the history of technology. It attempts to assess the wisdom of possible future courses of action with regard to technology in e-learning and education.

This ethnographic study employs a gender perspective to understand the motivations of eight women literacy learners participating in a village-based functional literacy programme in rural North-eastern Thailand. Field research took place over six months of periodic residence in a North-eastern Thai village, and involved participant observation,…

In the modern world, skimming through information quickly and finding the important nuggets of knowledge from amongst the information overload is an essential skill. One way to train oneself for this kind of literacy is reading on the internet, which requires continuous assessment of search results and specifying searches. In this article a…

The meeting reported upon was held to review existing cooperation between the United Nations Specialized Agencies in the field of literacy, as well as to discuss future collaboration in the light of the 1971-1972 Program and Budget of UNESCO and the orientation and expansion of the World Literacy Programme proposed therein. The report covers the…