VOLUME 5 ISSUE 1: WINTER 2023
Adult Literacy Education: The International Journal of Literacy, Language, and Numeracy
ProLiteracy
The journal’s mission is to publish research on adult basic and secondary education and transitions to college and career programs. It informs practitioners, researchers, policy makers, and funders about best practices in adult literacy, numeracy, and English language education in publicly funded, community and volunteer-based programs in a wide range of contexts. Each issue will consist of research articles focused on a particular theme plus other content of interest to readers (e.g., resource reviews, opinion pieces, and debates and discussions on timely topics of interest to the field).
Contact: ProLiteracy, https://www.proliteracy.org/ALE-Journal
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Research Articles
Age, Period, and Cohort Effects on Adult Literacy Skills in the United States
Takashi Yamashita, University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Thomas J. Smith, Northern Illinois University; Phyllis A. Cummins, Miami University
Adult literacy skills are critical assets of individuals as well as societies in terms of economic (e.g., human capital) and social well-being. Thus, it is important to monitor the long-term trends and sources of skill gain/loss. Yet, temporal sources of adult literacy skill variation are understudied. The current study analyzed three comparable, nationally representative datasets including the 1994 International Adult Literacy Survey; the 2003 International Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey; and the 2012/2014/2017 Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies.
Correspondence: yamataka@umbc.edu
Community-Based Adult Learning: a Scottish Case Study in the Time of COVID-19
Lyn Tett, Universities of Edinburgh and Huddersfield
Community-based adult learning (CBAL) focuses on improving the quality of life for the most disadvantaged and has a different ideology, methods, and curriculum from mainstream education. This Scottish case-study investigated the main changes that had impacted on CBAL provision in the preceding three years. These were: a reduction in funding for CBAL and its undervaluing by other professions; the impact of COVID-19 on learning and teaching; the importance of CBAL in promoting wellbeing.
Correspondence: lyn.tett@ed.ac.uk
Report from the Field
An Intelligent Tutoring System for Adult Literacy Learners: Lessons for Practitioners
Daphne Greenberg, Georgia State University; Christine Miller, Georgia State University; Arthur C. Graesser, University of Memphis
This article is written by two researchers and a teacher involved with the development and implementation of a web-based intelligent tutoring system for adults reading at elementary levels. A description of the tool is provided, followed by some of the challenges faced in designing, developing, and using the tool in adult literacy classrooms.
Correspondence: dgreenberg@gsu.edu
Forum: Supporting Mental Health
Adult Mental Health in Education: Examining the Needs of Today’s Adult Learner
Kristen C. Eccleston, Weinfeld Education Group
According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), one in five adults living in the United States has a mental illness (2022). The term “mental illness” accounts for a vast number of conditions, all of which differ in the level of impact on an individual. Furthermore, a study from NIMH (2022) estimates that only 43% of individuals with a mental illness receive treatment. With such a high frequency of adults knowingly and unknowingly being adversely impacted by mental health disorders, there is a strong likelihood that if you are an adult facilitator, you have students struggling with mental health.
Correspondence: Eccleston.Education@gmail.com
A Digital Literacy Program for Adults with Mental Health Conditions
Sarah Perret, Noy Alon, and John Torous; Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School
Limited literacy has a large impact on the U.S. population; about half of adults lack sufficient literacy proficiency (Rothwell, 2020). However, not all populations are impacted equally, as there is a significant comorbidity between low literacy and mental illness (Sentell & Shumway, 2003). Evidence suggests that patients suffering from a mental illness can experience reading difficulties in childhood (Maughan & Carroll, 2006), which in part contributes to the delays seen in adulthood. Low literacy not only makes educational attainment and completing daily tasks challenging but also is associated with poor health outcomes (including mental health) and is a recognized barrier to accessing health resources (Sentell & Shumway, 2003).
Correspondence: jtorous@bidmc.harvard.edu
Creating a Multiculturally Responsive and Trauma-Informed Classroom Ecology for Diverse Learners: Collaboration, Classroom Community, and Identification of Systemic Barriers
Maya Matalon and Caroline S. Clauss-Ehlers nLong Island University, Brooklyn
In 2020 and 2021, 44% of adult learners identified as Hispanic/Latinx, 19% as Black/African American, 8% as Asian/Asian American, and 1% as American Indian or Alaska Native (National Reporting System for Adult Education [NRSA], 2021).Among this cohort of 2020-2021 adult learners, most were English language learners with low-literacy and/or cultural barriers. Almost 25% were economically challenged (NRSA, 2021). Trauma amongst these learners is also prevalent, with 44% of those participating in an adult basic education program reporting trauma (Miller-Roenigk et al., 2021). It is thus imperative for educators of adult learners to employ a multicultural approach that also accounts for traumas experienced by underserved populations due to racism, historical violence, discrimination, and immigration, among other experiences (Tummala-Narra, 2007).
Correspondence: maya.matalon@my.liu.edu or caroline.clauss-ehlers@liu.edu
Book Review
Review of Resisting Neoliberalism in Education: Local, National and Transnational Perspectives
Erik Jacobson, Montclair State University
As described by the editors of Resisting Neoliberalism in Education, the key goals of the collection are to share “resources of hope” and to identify “interstices for resistance - points where it is possible to intervene to disrupt the dominant neoliberal regime and to help emergent, more emancipatory, cultures to take root” (p. 253). As such, the volume is intended to not just diagnose the societal, economic, and educational ills created by neoliberalism, but to also highlight practices that point towards a more humane future.
Correspondence: jacobsone@mail.montclair.edu
Resource Review
Review of Building and Growing Apprenticeship with Equity in Mind: An Equitable Apprenticeships Toolkit
Chrissie Klinger, LINCS Career Pathways and Postsecondary Transitions Group Moderator
Building and Growing Apprenticeship with Equity in Mind: An Equitable Apprenticeships Toolkit, released in September 2021, is a great resource to support programs in the work they do to help adults access promising career opportunities. Over the last decade, more and more industries are embracing the apprenticeship model, which allows individuals to “earn while they learn.” According to the U.S. Department of Labor (2021), there are currently over 25,000 registered apprenticeships in the United States.
Correspondence: chrissie.klinger@gmail.com
Research Digest
Health Literacy and COVID-19: Implications for the ABE/ASE Classroom
Michelle Mavreles Ogrodnick and Iris Feinberg, Georgia State University
There is a deep gap between how health messages are communicated and how adults with lower literacy skills can understand them to make good health decisions. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted this gap with a plethora of accurate, complex, contradictory, and false information that was difficult for people at all literacy levels to understand; adults with lower literacy skills may not have both the general and health literacy skills to parse through confusing health information. ... Adults with low literacy may struggle to understand and use basic individual health and public health guidance; adult educators can play an important role in sharing trustworthy and easier to understand health information through curricular innovations in their classrooms.
Correspondence: ifeinberg2@gsu.edu
Technology Solutions for Adult Foundational Education Challenges
The CrowdED Learning SkillBlox Solution
David J. Rosen, Newsome Associates
SkillBlox is an initiative of the EdTech Center at World Education where its creator, Jeff Goumas, now works. In this column, I will briefly describe SkillBlox, what you will find there now, and what is planned. A skill block, according to Goumas, is a skill-based collection of activities that teachers create by finding, organizing, and adding aligned free and open education resources that can be shared with their students and shared with and then adapted by other teachers for their students.
Correspondence: djrosen@newsomeassociates.com