[AAACE-NLA] Which list?

[Debbie Yoho]

(I am cross-posting this question to the two lists mentioned as well as to
NIFL moderators because I don't know who can answer this question and on
which list I may find an answer).
 
I have a question about the AALPD list and the AACE-NLA list. I have been
subscribing to both. I get almost no messages on the NLA LIST, but I notice
several well-known NLAers (Muro, Eckert, Demetrion, etc.) are posting often
to the AALPD list, and usually about what I would call advocacy issues.
With the end of NIFL NLA, I'm confused now why the NLA dialog does not seem
to have materialized on the AACE NLA. Is this just my perception? More to
the point, where should I be looking for policy discussion? I'd like to
unsubscribe to AALPD but am afraid I will miss information, especially
about what is going on in the states. (I rely on the NCL list now for
national info and alerts, and hope and trust that dialog is kept current.)
 
Deborah W. Yoho
Co-moderator, NIFL-Health Listserv
President, SC Adult Literacy Educators
Executive Director, Greater Columbia Literacy Council
2728 Devine Street,  Columbia, SC  29205
803-765-2555   Fax  803-779-8417   dwyoho at earthlink.net


> [Original Message]
> From: Thomas Sticht <tsticht at znet.com>
> To: <aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org>
> Cc: <tsticht at aznet.net>
> Date: 4/25/2003 10:11:01 PM
> Subject: [AAACE-NLA]Fourth Grade Plunge and Adult Literacy Research
>
> Research Note                                        April 24, 2003
>
>
>     The Fourth-Grade Plunge: An Example of How Evidence-Based Adult
Literacy
>     Research Has Influenced K-12 Instructional Guidance
>
>     Tom Sticht
>
>     In September 2002,  The Partnership for Reading published a report
>     authored by John Kruidenier entitled Research-Based Principles for
Adult
>     Basic Education Reading Instruction (the report can be downloaded at
>     www.nifl.gov/partnershipfor reading). The report laments the paucity
of
>     research on adult reading and discusses how it draws upon K-12
research
>     to inform adult reading instruction when that is appropriate. Missing
>     in most of the recent guidance on scientific, evidence-based
>     research for teaching children to read is any reference to adult
literacy
>     research that can inform K-12 educational practice.
>
>     However, the Spring 2003 issue of the American Educator, the
professional
>     journal of the American Federation of Teachers, an AFL-CIO labor
>     organization for educators, has published a special issue with the
title:
>     "The Fourth-Grade Plunge: The Cause, the Cure". The cover of the
special
>     includes a summary that states:
>
>     "In fourth grade, poor children’s reading comprehension starts a
drastic
>     decline-and rarely recovers. The Cause: They hear millions fewer
words at
>     home than do their advantaged peers-and since words represent
knowledge,
>     they don’t gain the knowledge that underpins reading comprehension.
The
>     Cure: Immerse these children, and the many others whose comprehension
is
>     low, in words and the knowledge the words represent- as early as
>     possible."
>
>     Inside the journal, the major article is by E. D. Hirsch, Jr., author
of
>     the best-selling, and controversial book Cultural Knowledge: What
Every
>     American Needs to Know (Houghton Mifflin, 1987). In the present
article,
>     Hirsch offers one approach to building children’s comprehension
> ability in a section called, Build Oral Comprehension and Background
> Knowledge. The
>     section begins with the statement, "Thomas Sticht has shown that oral
>     comprehension typically places an upper limit on reading
> comprehension; if you don’t recognize and understand the word when you
> hear it, you also
>     won’t be able to comprehend it when reading. This tells us something
very
>     important: oral comprehension generally needs to be developed in our
>     youngest readers if we want them to be good readers." Hirsch cites a
book
>     entitled Auding and Reading: A Developmental Model by Sticht, et al
>     (HumRRO, 1974-now out of print) in support of his statement. In an
>     earlier book entitled The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them
>     (Doubleday, 1996) Hirsch has referred to the limits of oral language
>      comprehension on reading comprehension once decoding has been
acquired
>      as "Sticht’s Law."
>
>     Later in this special issue of the American Educator, Andrew
Biemiller, a
>     professor at the Institute of Child Study at he University of Toronto
>     extends Hirsch’s point in an article entitled, Oral Comprehension Sets
> the Ceiling on Reading Comprehension. In support of his argument
> Biemiller
>     cites a chapter by Sticht & James (1984) which includes an extended
>     discussion of the concepts of "oracy to literacy transfer" and the
use of
>     listening assessment to determine "reading potential."
>
>     What I have found particularly interesting is that these articles cite
>     research by colleagues and myself that was done as part of a program
of
>     research to better understand adult reading education, not childhood
>     reading.  Almost 30 years ago, to aid in the better understanding of
> adult literacy issues, colleagues and I wrote Auding and Reading: A
>     Developmental Model to provide a summary and synthesis of how the
> "typical child," a theoretical abstraction of course,  born into our
> literate
>     society grows up to become literate in the judgment of other adults.
This
>     was done to provide a frame of reference for better understanding 
how it
>     is that some children, unlike the "typical child," grow up to be less
> than adequately literate in the judgment of other adults and might
> benefit from participating in an adult literacy program.
>
>     The Auding and Reading book offered guidance for adult reading
> instruction that presaged the present guidance in the American
> Educator for K-12 education. For instance, on page 122 of Auding and
> Reading we stated the
>     need for: "Methods for improving oral language skills as foundation
> skills for reading. In this regard, it would seem that, at least with
> beginning or unskilled readers, a sequence of instruction in which
> vocabulary and concepts are first introduced and learned via oracy
> skills would reduce
>     the learning burden by not requiring the learning of both vocabulary
and
>     decoding skills at the same time. It is difficult to see how a person
can
>     learn to recognize printed words by "sounding them out" through some
>     decoding scheme if, in fact, the words are not in the oral language of
> the learner. Thus an oracy-to-literacy sequence of training would seem
>     desirable in teaching vocabulary and concepts to unskilled readers."
>
>     The Auding and Reading book goes on to discuss concepts of
> automaticity in decoding, which underlies fluency of decoding in both
> auding and reading
>     and why it is important to develop fluency (automaticity) of decoding
for
>     the constructive processes involved in comprehension by languaging to
>     proceed either by listening to the spoken language or by reading the
>     written language.
>
>     It is indicative of the rather long time that it takes for ideas to be
>     dissiminated and assimilated in a field of knowledge that this year
the
>     American Educator, which reaches a million or so educators, has
brought
>     many of the ideas from adult literacy research into the arena of K-12
>     education.
>
>     There remains a need for further understanding of the life span
changes
>     that affect reading. For instance, the National Adult Literacy Survey
>     (NALS) indicated that as adults got older, their performance of NALS
>     literacy tasks dropped. In research on the use of the telephone to
assess
>     literacy, colleagues and I found that we could draw upon the
theoretical
>     foundation of literacy given in the Auding and Reading book and
> subsequent research on listening and reading to assess knowledge
> development across the life span. In this case, we found that older
> adults knew more than
>     younger adults about a wide range of subjects. We used techniques that
> did not overload working memory like most of the NALS tasks do.
> Because older
>     adults generally lose some working memory capacity, we felt that NALS
> type tasks are inappropriate for assessing the literacy ability of
> older
>     adults. Whatever the case, the fact that adults change across the life
>     span argues for more research to better understand literacy
> development in adulthood beyond what we have learned today and what we
> can gleam from
>     studying the literacy development of children. Interestingly, as the
>     American Educator for Spring 2003 illustrates,  what new learning we
>     acquire about adult literacy development across the life span may have
>     additional, important implications for K-12 literacy education. This
> adds weight to the importance of policies that emphasize the need for
> research on adult literacy education.
>
>
>     Thomas G. Sticht
>     International Consultant in Adult Education
>     2062 Valley View Blvd.
>     El Cajon, CA 92019-2059
>     Tel/fax: (619) 444-9133
>     Email: tsticht at aznet.net
>
>
>
>
>
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