[NLA] Reading Research On Adult Reading

[George E. Demetrion]

Colleagues:

I'd like to offer congratulations to the grant recipients.  Their studies
are likely to add important knowledge on some of the intricacies of the
adult reading process.  This research should add to the pool of existing
and emergent knowledge, though (in advance) I would caution against
assumptions (not necessarily made by the researchers) that the results
will be definitive or that there are not other ways of looking not only
at adult reading, butwhat some view as  the more fundamental topic of
adult literacy. 
 
Given the influence of the National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development  to help shape research projects designed for adult literacy
studies, it becomes more pressing than ever that alternative agencies,
particularly the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and
Literacy (NCSALL) located at Harvard University, to maintain and
strengthen its own distinctive research/scholarly focus.  One
particularly hopes that NCSALL resist pressures to restructure their work
more along the lines of the direction promoted among the NIFL/OVAE/
NICHHD axis.

I think in particular of NCSALL's eight pound 739 page tomb authored by
the developmental psychologist Robert Kegan and his colleagues, "Toward a
New Pluralism in ABE/ESOL Classrooms:  Teaching to Multiple 'Cultures of
Mind'" that presents a very different type of information about adult
literacy education than will be evident in the projects sponsored by the
announced grant awards.

Without going into the details of the Kegan study (I occasionally open it
up and read a random paragraph--definitely my kind of book, though) or
the new research projects, let's just say that they are both forms of
what might be reasonably construed as legitimate research.  Within their
respective (and different) frameworks and research methodologies, they
are likely to be equally rigorous even though the focus is quite
different.  Specifically, the Kegan study looks at the phenomenon of
meaning as it is experienced in different ways by different types of
learners in adult literacy and ESOL programs, while the federal grant
studies will focus on the specific topic of reading.  

The point is that both are valid, but by the government supporting one
type of research based on a highly particular methodological design, in
effect, the government is legitimizing one way of knowing over others. 
It may be fair to say that that's an inevitable by-product of the
political process.  Fair enough (I suppose), though the concern is raised
on government funding being used to legitimize one type of knowledge over
another with the invariable political agenda influencing the general
design of the projects.  In the process, studies like Kegan's won't get
the public attention that many feel such a study merits and its findings
will not be factored into policy assessments about what happens in adult
literacy education programs.

In the process of funding new initiatives, let's keep pluralism alive and
healthy, which some feel is under jeopardy in the Bush administration. 
Let's make sure that university-based research agencies like NCSALL, even
with their governmental funding, can keep an independent focus from the
dominant vision of adult literacy education that is beginning to
crystallize in Washington DC.

George Demetrion
sophocles5 at juno.com

__________________________________________________________________

>THREE FEDERAL ORGANIZATIONS ANNOUNCE $18.5 MILLION GRANT AWARDS TO
FIRSTADULT 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
theNational 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 
endof the first year the investigators will be reporting on their ongoing
progress and preliminary findings. 


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