The following is posted on behalf of Laura Westberg. I am sorry to have
to send the summary as an attachment (I know that makes receipt
difficult for some of you), but the tables included in the information
lost their formatting when they were embedded in the e-mail message. 


Dr. Sticht,

Thank you for your comments and additional information about various
types of instructional programs that have shown positive results for
adult learners. Attached is a summary of the project activities, teacher
and learner outcomes for the Adult Reading Project conducted by the
National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL).  An expanded technical
report will be available on the NCFL Web site soon. We will notify
listserv participants when it is available. Please feel free to send any
further questions you might have about the information reported here.

Laura Westberg
Director, Research/Special Projects
National Center for Family Literacy
325 West Main Street, Suite 300
Louisville, KY 40202-4237
Phone: 502-584-1133 x172
Fax: 502-584-0172
Email: lwestberg at famlit.org
Web: http://www.famlit.org
 






-----Original Message-----
From: familyliteracy-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:familyliteracy-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of tsticht at znet.com
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 1:45 PM
To: familyliteracy at nifl.gov
Subject: [FamilyLiteracy 1117] Re: Family literacy findings released
todayshow one grade level gain for every 10-13 hours of instruction


Colleagues: In a 1987 paper I reported a number of adult literacy
programs
that made reading grade level gains in a given number of hours. The best
"program" consisted of giving a two hour reading test to mid-level
readers
(around 5th-6th grades), waiting two weeks while they engaged in
vocational
training, not reading instruction, and then testing them again with an
alternate form of the reading test. They made 1 grade level gain on the
standardized reading tests.

A program using the PLATO computer based instruction reported 1.8 years
gain
in 11 hours. An Air Force program reported 2.3 years gain in 14 hours of
instruction. Another PLATO program reported 1.6 years gain in 15 hours
of
instruction. An Army program reported 3 years gain in 41 hours of
instruction.

I am looking forward to reading the technical report from the NCFL study
reporting a year's gain in reading for every 10 or so hours of
instruction.
This suggests that in just 60 hours of instruction an adult reading at
the
6th grade level could pass a standardized test with scores at the high
school level (the 12th grade). This would imply that some 6,000 new
vocabulary words were added to the adult's functionally useful lexicon
and
rate of silent reading of grade-level appropriate material would
increase
by 60-70 words per minute.

I have found the web page with the press release about the NCFL study,
but I
do not know the web page for the full technical report. I would
appreciate
it if someone would post the web address for the full technical report.

Thanks,
Tom Sticht

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