[NLA] International Women's Day

[Thomas Sticht]

Celebrating the first International Women’s Day
in the United Nation’s Literacy Decade 2003-2012

March 8th is International Women’s Day (IWD). It is the first IWD in the
new United Nation’s Literacy Decade.

For over a quarter century UNESCO has called attention to the importance
of women’s literacy education around the world. Globally, women’s
education has been found to produce multiplier effects by improving not
only their literacy, but also their economic self-sufficiency, their
community activism, their civil participation, and their ability to better
provide for the health and cognitive development, including literacy,  of
their children.

Adult Reading and the Intergenerational Transfer of Literacy

The signal importance of women’s education in the intergenerational
transfer of cognitive skills from parents to their children arises from
the fact that cognitive development begins while the newly conceived baby
is developing within the mother’s womb. During this time, the mother’s
ability to maintain her own health and to provide nourishment and safety
for the developing baby is unique. There is no intervention program that
others may use to substitute for this time in the womb at the present
time.

On March 16, at the National Conference on Family Literacy and the
California Family Literacy Conference in Long Beach, CA, I will present a
Family Literacy Institute entitled Adult Reading and the Intergenerational
Transfer of Literacy which will discuss adult reading instruction and the
intergenerational relationships among adult reading achievement and the
intergenerational transfer of literacy from parents, especially women, to
their children.

Resources for the Institute

Documents related to the March 16 institute are available on the internet
at www.nald.ca under the Full Text Documents page searched by Authors
using "S" for Sticht. They include:

Sticht, T. G. (2002, February). Teaching reading with adults. El Cajon,
CA: International Consultant in Adult Education.
(This paper discusses the theory of literacy as the use of graphics
technology. It analyzes the permanence of graphic displays, their ability
to be arranged in space, and their use of light  and distinguishes between
their use when reading is considered as a second signaling system for
speech (alphabetics) and their use when reading is considered as skill in
searching and locating information in complex visual displays. )

Sticht, T. G. (1997). Functional Context Education: Workshop Resource
Notebook.
El Cajon, CA: Applied Behavioral & Cognitive Sciences, Inc.
(This notebook presents the Functional Context Education (FCE) approach to
adult education that is  supported by research in adult education and
training. The cognitive science foundations of literacy are discussed and
a developmental model of how the normal, typical child grows up to become
an adult literate is presented. Four case studies illustrate applications
of FCE to adult literacy program design and development.)

Sticht, T. and Armstrong, W. (1994, February). Adult Literacy in the
United States: A Compendium of Quantitative Data and Interpretative
Comments. Washington, DC: National Institute for Literacy.
(This report presents extensive data on the assessment of adult reading
skills and it has a section on the intergenerational transfer of literacy
showing data for parent-child literacy relationships. Graphs show that as
children’s parent’s education goes up, their children’s literacy scores go
up, too, suggesting an intergenerational transfer of literacy. Important
ethnic differences in the intergenerational transfer of literacy from
parents to children are indicated.)

I hope that colleagues from the NLA list will be able to join with me in
celebrating the United Nation’s Literacy Day and International Women’s Day
at the National Family Literacy Conference March 16th!

Tom Sticht



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