February 23, 2007

Adult Education and Literacy in the United States:
A Syllabus and Resources for an Online Course of Self-Study

Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education

Each year many people start work in adult education and literacy
development without much background in the field. Others who have worked
in the field for a while may wish to deepen their knowledge of the
field. To give people a chance to learn more about the field and its
history, policies, practices and issues that it deals with I have
developed this syllabus for self-study. It provides guidance to 12
reports of mine which are available for free downloading online. Reading
one report a week will provide a one semester, 12 week course of
self-study. Except for number 1.1, these resources are located online at
www.nald.ca at the Library pages for the site. To find any of these
resources search the NALD Library pages using Sticht for my last name,
or google my name and the title of the report.

Syllabus and Resources

Part 1: History of and Perspective on the Adult Education and Literacy
System (AELS) of the United States

1.1. The Rise of the Adult Education and Literacy System in the United
States: 1600-2000. [ A 400 year history of activities leading to the
Adult Education Act of 1966 and the emergence of the present day AELS
with organizations and individuals involved in this rise. Online at
www.ncsall.net/?id=576].

1.2. Beyond 2000: Future Directions for Adult Education.  [Looks at
social, demographic, science, economic and technology trends with
implications for the AELS; examines government and legislative trends
with implications for the future of the AELS.]

1.3. The  Adult Education  and Literacy System (AELS) in the United
States:
Moving From the Margins to the Mainstream of Education. [Includes the
growing value of the Adult Education  and Literacy System (AELS)  in the
new millennium; value of AELS for improving adults' and children's
health, learning and schooling; need for mainstreaming the AELS in U.S.
education; strengthening the AELS.]

Part 2. Testing, Assessment, and Accountability in the AELS.

2.1. Adult Literacy in the United States: A Compendium of Quantitative
Data With Interpretive Comments.  [Presents a developmental theory of
literacy and history of and items from standardized tests in the U.S.
including military tests from World War I to 1990s and all mass literacy
tests for adults from 1930s to the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS)
of 1993, which is similar to the NAAL of 2003. Presents data on
relationships of parents education to the literacy of their children;
relationships of adult literacy to occupations; and samples of pre- and
post-test gains for over 30 programs, including longitudinal growth
curves for some programs.]

2.2. Accountability in Adult Literacy Education: Focus on Workplace
Literacy Resources for Program Design, Assessment, Testing, &
Evaluation. [Provides knowledge resources for designing, delivering and
evaluating workplace literacy programs; discusses testing and
accountability in adult literacy programs in the Workforce Education Act
of 1998 still in effect as of 2007; determining how many adults are
lacking in workforce literacy: the national and international adult
literacy surveys.]

Part 3. Curriculum Theory With Case Studies Illustrating Applications to
Adult Education and Literacy Programs.

3.1. Functional Context Education: Making learning relevant (1997
edition).
[Eight chapters including The Power of Adult Literacy Education; Some
Challenges of Diversity for Adult Literacy Education. Views On
Contemporary Cognitive Science; Introduction to Functional Context
Education; Functional Context Education and Literacy Instruction; and
four case studies in applying Functional Context Education to the design
of programs that integrate (or embed, contextualize) basic skills and
vocational or parenting education. (workplace literacy, family
literacy).]

3.2. Functional Context Education: Making Learning Relevant in the 21st
Century (2005 edition). [Functional Context Education (FCE) materials
available online in several nations; the Adult Literacy and Life skills
(ALL) survey, National Adult Assessment of Literacy (NAAL) survey; FCE
in historical perspective, (1860-Present) including Paulo Freire and
Learner Centered, Participatory Literacy Education. Methodologies used
in adult literacy research for determining what is relevant to youth and
adult learners; five case studies illustrating the application of FCE in
parenting, vocational training, and health literacy.]

Part 4. Listening and Reading Theory and Practice With  Adult Learners

4.1. Auding and Reading: A Developmental Model. [This is the first book
applying modern cognitive science to oracy (listening to and speaking
language) and its transfer to literacy development with children and
adults. It presents an early version of Gough's "simple model of
reading"
stating that Reading=Decoding+Comprehension (measured by listening). It
provides an extensive review of research on language development,
relationships of listening to reading, and the evaluation of four
hypotheses derived from the simple model presented in the book.

4.2. Teaching Reading With Adults. [This paper discusses literacy as the
mastery of graphics technology. It shows 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 (write) and access (read) massive collections of
knowledge; to analyze and synthesize discrete information into coherent
bodies of knowledge, and to perform complex procedures with accuracy and
efficiency.

4.3. Seven Pioneering Adult Literacy Educators in the History of
Teaching Reading With Adults in the United States.  [Throughout the 20th
century both Synthetic and Analytic methods of teaching reading were
favored by different adult literacy educators. Favoring the Synthetic or
"code"
methods are Harriet A. Jacobs, J. Duncan Spaeth  and Frank Laubach.
Favoring the Analytic or "meaning making " methods are Cora Wilson
Stewart, Paul Witty, Francis P. Robinson, and Septima Poinsette Clark.
This paper discusses teaching innovations introduced by each of these
pioneers in adult literacy education.]

5. Policy Papers

5.1. Toward a Multiple Life Cycles Education Policy: Investing in the
Education of Adults to Improve the Educability of Children. [This paper
argues for education policy that recognizes that literacy is transferred
across generations from parents to their children. Therefore, we need to
have a much larger investment in the education of youth and adults who
are parents or who will be parents. Adult literacy education affects
multiple life cycles. An extensive review is presented of research on
early childhood education, relationships of parent's education to
children's literacy, parenting and preschool effectiveness, and other
issues.]

5.2 Reforming Adult Literacy Education: Transforming Local Programs Into
National Systems In Canada, the United Kingdom & the United States.
[Activities are underway in these three nations for transforming adult
literacy education from a variety of disparate programs into organized
systems of education for adults. Activities include:1. Scale of Need:
determining how many adults are in need of adult basic skills education.
2.
Access to Provision: determining how many adults are aware of, have
access to and enroll in adult literacy education provision. 3. Nature of
Provision: determining the nature of the delivery system of adult
literacy provision. 4. Quality of Provision: determining the need for
improved quality. 5. Accountability of Provision: improving methods for
determining student learning and other outcomes.]