[NLA] Research in adult literacy education

[AWilder106@aol.com]

Dear Nancy,

Thanks for your marvelously informative email.  I can certainly see how your 
NRS experience feeds into your feeling that the feds don't know what they are 
doing in regards the realities you deal with every day.  And more than this, 
their ignorance  reduced funding for adult students. What may be obvious 
facts to you may not be to others, like me, so what you have to say is very 
useful.  

Just very quickly because the day is fleeting past--anyone who quotes 
documents anywhere should be able to say where the information came from.

I think you should keep raising your voice as you have here, your insights 
are valuable. When you speak up there is greater chance that your knowledge 
will be incorporated in policy.  I am referring David Rosen's testimony in 
New Hampshire which he described on the list.

I was thinking of the evaluation Marsha Tait described when I mentioned 
programs getting together, what she accomplished was in essence a much larger 
grouping than that which could happen only in one state.  This has ***already 
happened***, and the geographical area was much larger than Boston/Cambridge 
or South Dakota.

As for pushing rigorous teaching methodology, there is more than one way, or 
two  to be rigorous. I am thinking of phonemic awareness, whole language, and 
project-based learning.  If anyone examines the teaching learning  
"technologies" these represent they will find a solid substrate.  Reference 
Reid Lyon, Louisa Moats, Yetta Goodman, John McNeil, and Maryanne Wolf.   
(Further info available on request.)

As to why teaching methodologies should appear on the NLA--personally, I 
think we should inform ourselves about what we are advocating for.  Many NLA 
writers have commented on the backgrounds of the proposed Board as rigid, my 
paraphrase, meaning that only one method of teaching literacy would be 
espoused, and only one type of research accepted as valid.  I think it's up 
to us to investigate methods that we know are useful, to look at valid and 
reliable research that supports their use, and to put them right out front.  
That would include the materials and methodologies you use.

As for using only one example of literacy reached by another route, all I 
need is one to show that there is another (successful) way to learn to read 
and write.  That breaks the logjam of lockstep thinking, it's the power of 
the negative case, or why the dog didn't bark in the night (Arthur Conan 
Doyle).

I really appreciate your information, thanks for your willingness to share 
your experience with those like me who are outsiders to what is your everyday 
reality.

Andrea

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