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From: Barb Van Horn <blv1@psu.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-workplace@literacy.nifl.gov>
Subject: [NIFL-WORKPLACE:612] Teaching Reading With Adults
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The following may be of interest to NIFL Workplace list members who are
interested in research-based reading and instruction for adult
literacy and language students. The paper referred to in the following
abstract is available free on line from www.nald.ca under Full Text
Documents searched by authors using S for Sticht.
Teaching Reading With Adults
Thomas G. Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education
In Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States renewed
interest is being given to the teaching of literacy, especially reading,
to adults using research-based information.
Like the teaching of reading to children, the teaching of reading to
adults has many controversies. The same debates rage about the "whole
language approach" versus the "word recognition", "decoding", or "phonics"
approach in the field of adult reading as in the teaching of reading to
children ( McCormick, 1988 ).
Additionally, there are debates about the purposes of teaching adults to
read, generally framed in the larger context of teaching literacy. Some
argue for literacy for "empowerment," "giving voice," or stimulating
"critical awareness" while eschewing reading (literacy) instruction that
is "technical," that is, aimed at teaching reading "merely" as a cognitive
task (Street, 1984 ).
Though there is no doubting the importance of the many issues involved in
these debates, our literature review has found no body of empirical
evidence to argue convincingly that students learn better, go further in
their education, or become more successful citizens in programs operated
in line with one or the other point of view. And, indeed, there is often
considerable ambiguity about just what the words being used actually mean
to different people (Ellsworth, 1989).
Given the controversies and the variety of ways of viewing the job of
teaching adults to read, in this paper I have opted to present an analysis
of what learners might learn and what teachers might teach if we view
reading as one aspect of the use of graphics technology to develop tools
for communicating, developing knowledge, and accomplishing various tasks
(Bruner, 1968). The advantage of this approach is that it presents a body
of technical knowledge that may be learned within the context of any of
the various ideologies or instructional belief systems held by teachers of
adults. For instance, whether one subscribes to the "whole language" or
"decoding" approaches to literacy instruction, or to "empowerment" or
"functional, economic, utility" as aims of instruction, learners who wish
to become literates or to improve their literacy must learn to recognize,
interpret, and produce graphic symbols and devices such as forms, maps,
and textbooks.
This paper discusses literacy as the mastery of graphics technology.
Topics include The Power of Permanent Thought, Information Processing in
Space, and The Guiding Light. Each topic is developed to show how the
basic elements of the graphic medium - its relative permanence, its
ability to be arrayed in space, and its use of the properties of light -
work together to permit literates to generate and access massive
collections of knowledge; to analyze and synthesize discrete information
into coherent bodies of knowledge; and to perform complex procedures with
accuracy and efficiency.
--
Barb Van Horn (M.Ed., Reading)
Co-Director, Institute for the Study of Adult Literacy
and Goodling Institute for Research in Family Literacy
College of Education, Penn State University
BLV1@PSU.EDU (e-mail) 814-865-5876 (phone) 814-863-6108 (fax)
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