Fifty years: Few others have dedicated as much time to one adult literacy program. Sandra Malone has. 

During National Reading Month, we celebrate the importance of reading and promote a love of reading across America. We celebrate with the thousands of adults who have worked, or are working, to build their literacy skills so they, too, can experience the benefits and joy of reading. However, there are 43 million American adults who struggle to read beyond a third-grade level. 

For over 20 years we’ve given adult literacy programs the opportunity to better meet the needs of their students by providing free instructional materials through the National Book Fund. The grant program started simply to ensure programs with limited budgets had the high-quality materials they needed. It continues because the grants give programs so much more than just books.  

The research articles included in Volume 5, Issue 1 of Adult Literacy Education: The International Journal of Literacy, Language, and Numeracy both examine how circumstances of the world around us impact adult literacy learning.  

Mary Krenceski has spent the past 15 years visiting a manufacturing facility once a week to teach new English language learners the language and vocabulary skills they need to succeed on the job.