Betsy and Sandy: You are not the only ones confused by the reporting of this
research. In reading the Press Release on the home page of the National
Center for Family Literacy (NCFL)  I was surprised to read: Quote" A
National Center for Family Literacy study found that adult literacy results
can improve as much as one grade level gain for an average of every 10 hours
to 13 hours of instruction." The Press Release also stated that there were
278 adults participating, so it seemed like a good size research project.

I suspect that I was not alone in thinking that in this study 278 adult
literacy learners were post-tested after 10 to 13 hours of reading
instruction and they made 1 year of gain. Then they were post-tested again
after another 10-13 hours of instruction and made another year of gain,
bringing their improvement to 2 years of gain, and so forth. I wondered if
this was what had happened.

Fortunately I learned on the NIFL Family Literacy list that there was a
brief technical report about the study on the www.famlit.org web site so I
read it. This gave me some other surprises which were not along the lines
that Susan McShane mentioned but along lines that render questionable the
research findings as reported.

First, the data on reading gains were not based on 278 adults but just 82
(39 Year 1, 43 Year 2), a 70 percent drop in the number of adults I thought
were contributing pre- and post-test data.

Second, I found that instead of having tested students after  10-13 hours,
the report said: Quote:" Hence, it seemed reasonable to administer the TABE
after 20 hours of  reading instruction and that is what the teachers did. "
End Quote So I wondered how the conclusion was reported that they made a 1
grade level gain for every 10-13 hours of instruction if teachers tested
after 20 hours.

Third, I posted a question about the pre-post-testing on the NIFL Family
Literacy list and Laura Westberg, Director, Research/Special Projects at
NCFL said that the report saying that students were post-tested after 20
hours wasn't true, and instead reading instructional hours varied from 1 to
78 across the 2 years of the study!

Fourth, Laura said that: Quote:",,, to better understand the types of gains
that students were making in relation to the amount of reading instruction
they received, we calculated a gain per instructional hour based on the
total reading instructional hours reported by the teachers for the
students. Year 1 students had an average gain per instructional hour of .10
and Year 2 students had an average gain of .08. Thus, in year 1 for every
one hour of reading instruction, they gained an average of .10 grade levels
and in year 2 for every one hour of reading instruction they gained an
average of .08 grade levels. This translates into an average of 10-12.5
hours of reading instruction to raise a student's score on the TABE by one
grade level." End Quote

So actually adults didn't make a year's gain for every 10-13 hours, as the
Press Release stated. Instead, this is a hypothetical gain that would be
made if learning progressed equally hour by hour at a rate of .10 or .08
grade levels per hour (i.e., if you multiply .10 by 10 you get 1.0 year of
gain per 10 hours of instruction, etc.).  Of course, this is an altogether
unlikely event, especially given the use of a grade level scale which is
not a ratio or interval scale, meaning doing these sorts of dividing and
multiplying of the numbers are not valid arithmetical procedures.

David Rosen asked: Quote: "I wonder if anyone can shed some light on these
NCFL findings. Other studies I have seen suggest that anywhere from 50-150
hours are needed for each grade level gain. These findings are
extraordinary." End quote We now see that the findings are questionable
because of the problems mentioned above.


Tom Mechem thought the "extraordinary" findings of the NCFL study might
reflect the use of the diagnostic/prescriptive nature of the teaching of
specific  reading components of the NCFL instructional method. But, as I
have mentioned in earlier postings, other programs not following this
method have reported gains in the range presented by the NCFL study.

For examples of other studies reporting various amounts of gain per hours of
instruction see Part 3 of  Adult Literacy in the United States: A compendium
of quantitative data and interpretive comments by Sticht & Armstrong. You
can download a copy of this report at the www.nald.ca web site in the
library pages. You can also get to it by googling it.

At the present time, based on what has been reported so far, I believe adult
literacy educators should be wary and cautious in using this NCFL reading
research in promoting adult literacy education or making changes in
education programs.


Tom Sticht