An analysis is provided of the belief that theories developed about literacy within different academic disciplines and development campaigns have been built around contradictory assumptions. The conclusion is made that research is needed in order to make literacy instruction more functional in adult literacy programs. (109 references) (GLR)

Describes practical materials that relate to places within the English-as-a-Second-Language learner's own community, such as the supermarket, local fast food restaurants, pharmacy, and library. Each literacy booklet contains approximately 35 pages of activities that can be used as classroom handouts. (LB)

Describes a functional literacy program successfully carried out in a very remote district in the mountains of Nepal. Describes the program's successes in increasing literacy, self-confidence, community awareness, and social awareness among Nepali women. Discusses keys to this success. (SR)

Projections to 2006 suggest that 18% of new college graduates will not be able to find college-level jobs, depending on major, aptitude, and location. Investment in college education, especially in functional literacy and high-demand job skills, improves prospects. (SK)

Analyzes, within the historical context of functional literacy, a Connecticut Department of Education policy paper linking adult basic education and work force development. Calls for broader basic education that links instrumental knowledge with autobiographical insight and meaningful sociocultural knowledge using collaborative methodology. (SK)

In this study the authors investigate the experience of Sandy, a nontraditional university undergraduate whose student teaching took place in a small, impoverished rural community in the southwestern U.S. They focus on her student teaching experience with third graders in a community whose youngsters, living in rural poverty, were at-risk in their…

This paper examines the conception of functional literacy advanced by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a 29-member organization of leading industrialized countries, as part of its 1994 International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS). The paper suggests that embedded within this conception of literacy and the discourse…

The UNESCO publication "Final Global Evaluation Report of the Experimental World Literacy Programme (EWLP): Lessons Learned from 11 Projects" is examined. The concept of functionality (emphasising economic development over political, cultural, and social development) was found to be unsuccessful. (LH)

Literacy programs are needed by four groups: rural personnel, dropouts and pushouts, neo-literates, and the educated elite. The use of three principles for raising literacy standards for functional literacy programs for each of the groups is discussed, and some program suggestions are offered. (BP)

The Farmers Training and Functional Literacy Program should attempt to broaden the program content in exploring the possibilities of undertaking a comprehensive evaluation and the addition of social, cultural, and political education along with training in occupational functions. (Author/BP)

A report and recommendations endorsed by the New York State School Boards Association concerning the problem of functionally illiterate students leaving school are presented as an official position paper. Recommendations are made in the areas of local action, action to be undertaken by the commissioner of education, state action, federal action,…

Designed to encourage newspaper involvement in adult literacy and to assist in launching newspaper literacy campaigns, this handbook complements the American Newspaper Publishers Association Foundation's slide/video media show. The handbook is in five sections: (1) The Challenge; (2) Why Become Involved in Literacy? (discussing personal and social…

Participants in the workshop on literacy reported in this document included 15 educators and specialists from the Cook Islands, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, and Western Samoa. Chapter 1 reports an assessment of the present literacy situation in the South Pacific with particular attention to the problem of hidden illiteracy. Chapter 2…

Statistics indicating that the problem of illiteracy is lessening mask a greater problem--that of functional illiteracy. Functional illiterates may have some reading and writing skills but are not able to apply them as functioning members of society. A 1975 study using the most sophisticated instrument that had ever been used to determine…

Written primarily for use in training, this monograph is addressed to the middle-level evaluation worker in literacy projects and programs. The 12 chapters deal with the following topics: evaluation as a link in the "ideology to technology" chain, evaluation models and approaches, the situation-specific strategy model of evaluation, making…