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From: Bruce Carmel <bcarmel@rocketmail.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-assessment@literacy.nifl.gov>
Subject: [NIFL-ASSESSMENT:765] Grade Level and Adult Learners
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A question asked if adults beginning readers can
plateau at the 2nd or 3rd grade level. What a complex
question this is! Here are some of the thoughts this
brings up for me:
Assessment of really beginning readers has always
been a problem. Assigning "grade level " to adults
has always been a problem for me. Adults are not
children. Can a grown man or woman really read like
an eight-year-old, even if they get the same grade
level equivalent on tests? I do not believe so.
The standardized test we have been saddled with
in New York State is the TABE. This test was
certainly "validated" by the company that sells it,
but I do not consider it a valid instrument in the
true sense of the word.
My understanding of "validity" is that it means
"it measures what it claims to measure." The TABE
measures an adult's ability to choose the right
answers on a multiple choice test. It does not
measure an adult's ability to read. I have seen many
people read the questions and answers on the TABE,
understand all they read, and choice the wrong answer.
This can be due to a last of test-taking savvy,
cultural biases on the test (that asks people to read
a baseball scoreboard), or an inability to think
logically.
Assessing the growth of beginning readers remains
a challenge. I have known many people whose lives
have changed dramatically. They can now read street
signs, subway maps, their bills, notes from their
employers, etc., but they crash and burn on a
standardized test.
We don't have a good assessement tool to measure
progress for adult new readers at any level,
especially the beginning levels. With no alternative
to standardized tests, what can we do?
I have to give credit to the NALS, where people's
ability to read was assessed by looking at their
ability to read--sort of. The NALS sets the bar so
high. People are at Level One if they can identify
information in an text, for example, but not think
critically about it, cannot synthesize. But they read
it. I don't think such people can be called
illiterate. Anyway, the NALS looked at people's
reading levels. It is not a pre- and post-test.
Maybe the question really meant: "Do adults who
do not know how to read plateau at the beginning
levels?" If so, please forgive my digression. My
answer to that question, based on fifteen years of
experience, would be "Yes they often do." I have not
known any adult who came from a literate culture, who
did really not know how to read, who ever became a
deft and fluent reader. I have known many adults who
have learned a lot, but none how ever went from not
being able to read simple words and environmental
print to being able to read a book from Oprah's club.
That's only my experience. Maybe it's possible for an
adult nonreader to move into NALS Level Four and
higher. I have never seen it.
We know SO LITTLE about adult literacy. How much
can people learn? What is the best way for them to
learn? Why did they not learn in the first place? I
wrote a whole dissertation about those questions. The
answer I came up with is that we don't know very much
at all....
Bruce Carmel
Turning Point
Deputy ED
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