[NLA] Reading Research On Adult Reading

[Thomas Sticht]

Following is an edited/abridged version of a press release currently
available at the NIFL web site: www.nifl.gov
It suggests one direction in which the federal government is moving with
regard to adult literacy education.
Tom Sticht

THREE FEDERAL ORGANIZATIONS ANNOUNCE $18.5 MILLION GRANT AWARDS TO FIRST
ADULT LITERACY RESEARCH NETWORK

WASHINGTON, October 2, 2002 - A new research network unveiled today will
study the most effective methods and approaches for teaching reading
skills to low-literate adults, using $18.5 million in grants from the
National Institute for Literacy (NIFL), Office of Adult and
Vocational Education of the US Department of Education, and the National
Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) at the National
Institutes of Health. The funds, to be used over a five-year period, will
fund six individual research projects focused on adult literacy
instruction.

The projects within the network will design, develop, implement and study
the effectiveness of adult literacy interventions for low-literate adults,
including the role of decoding, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension
instruction and explicitness of instruction. These are the components of
reading that have been shown to be essential in teaching reading to
younger students, but instructional methods for teaching them to adults
have not been thoroughly investigated. 



All six of the funded studies will employ experimental or
quasi-experimental designs, one including a neuroimaging component.
Although these projects will not be completed for five years, by the end
of the first year the investigators will be reporting on their ongoing
progress
and preliminary findings. A listing of the principal investigators and
their institutions follows:

      Daphne Greenberg, Georgia State University
      Research on Reading Instruction for Low Literate Adults

      Susan Levy, University of Illinois
      Testing Impact of Health Literacy in Adult Literacy
and Integrated Family Approach  Programs

      Daryl Mellard, University of Kansas - Lawrence
      Improving Literacy Instruction for Adults

      John Sabatini, Educational Testing Services
      Relative Effectiveness of Reading Programs for Adults

      Frank Wood, Wake Forest University of the Health Sciences
      Young Adult Literacy Problems: Prevalence and Treatment

      Richard Venezky, University of Delaware
      Building a Knowledge Base for Teaching Adult Decoding

      
 "This type of in-depth study is crucial to understanding the best
ways to teach low-literate adults," said Assistant Secretary
D'Amico, Office of Vocational and Adult Education. "Armed with
scientifically-based reading instruction methods we can equip adults
with the reading and writing skills needed for better jobs and
opportunities."

For more information and a summary document, go to:
http://www.nichd.nih.gov/crmc/cdb/AFL_workshop.htm

      To view the Reading Research Working Group document, go to:
      http://www.nifl.gov/partnershipforreading/adult_reading/adult_reading.html



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