Evaluation of the 'Reading Potential' Concept for Marginally Literate Adults.
Abstract
This paper explores possible reasons for the fact that, in the United States, adult basic education programs in organizational settings are typically planned to be brief, concentrated programs in which years of lack of achievement are to be overcome by dent of intensive effort by teachers and learners. Two basic beliefs regarding adult education were identified as underlying the use of brief, remedial literacy programs in adult basic education. On the one hand, our cultural conceptions of human resources development and utilization lead us to consider that childhood is the time when basic skills and the basic knowledge needed to apply these skills are to be developed, and the K-12 school system and curriculum is societies' instrument for bringing about this development of human resources. Adulthood, then, is the time for the utilization of human resources. If people reach adulthood without developing what are thought to be requisite basic skills, then there is reluctance on the part of employers, in industry or in government, to provide extensive basic skills education because 'that is the school's job'. The use of brief literacy programs has been reinforced by the second belief examined in this study. This is the more-or-less common-sense notion that adult literacy students can acquire basic skills more rapidly than children in schools, due to their higher oral language skills and world experience, which gives adults higher 'reading potential' than elementary school children.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1982
- Accession Number
- ADA115036
Entities
People
- Thomas Sticht
Organizations
- Human Resources Research Organization