[NLA] Re: Why so much interest in adult reading?

[Belzera@aol.com]

Other than NCSALL's, there really hasn't been that much empirical research 
done on adult reading development.  Judith Alamprese is working on a study 
now, but I think it will be focused on phonemic awareness type skills.  Most 
of what I know of was done years ago.  For example, there are quite a few 
descriptions of adult reading development that are done as case study reports 
that appeared years ago in the Journal of reading and a few other places.  
These tend to be reports written by tutors (usually academics), and often 
either make a case about the abilities and potentialities of adult struggling 
readers or document a specific instructional approach and how it worked with 
that one learner.  I have always found these to be helpful but they probably 
wouldn't count for much in this era of evidence-based research.  

I don't have complete citations, but I'm sure you could do an ERIC search and 
find them.  Here are few examples:

Rigg, P.  Petra:  Learning to read at 45
Greenberg, D., Betsy:  Lessons learned from working with and adult nonreader
Forest, A.  Learning to read and write at 26
Baumann, J. One year with Kim:  From Nonreader to Reader
Baumann, J., Coping with reading disability:  Portrait of an adult disabled 
reader.
Baumann, J. Coping with reading disability-12 years later
Purcell-Gates, V., I ain't never read my own words before
Meyer, V., Estes, S.L., Harris, V.K., and Daniels, D.M., Norman:  Literate at 
age 44.
Jenkins, C., Reflective practice:  Blurring the boundaries between child and 
adult literacy
Cook-Gumperz, J., Dilemmas of identity:  oral and written literacies in the 
making of a basic writing student

One that is different but has always been very useful to me is called Living 
Literacy by Susan Lytle.  This identifies four dimensions of adult literacy 
development (beliefs, practices, process, and plans and goals).  

These articles certainly represent a range of foci for thinking about 
research and instruction in reading (and writing) for adults, but of course 
given their nature, they couldn't claim to be definitive.

Alisa

Alisa Belzer, PhD
Assistant Professor
Rutgers University
Graduate School of Education
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ  08901
(732) 932-7496, extension 8234
(215) 885-5645
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