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| Reading Instruction for Adult Learners | The definition of reading is "a complex system of deriving meaning from print" that requires:
• an understanding of how speech sounds are related to print,
• decoding (word identification) skills,
• fluency,
• vocabulary and background knowledge,
• active comprehension strategies, and
• a motivation to read.
These elements describe the content of reading instruction, and research provides guidelines for building many of the important skills. This news is good because the need is great.
Knowing Adults' Reading Needs
Reading can open various doors - to employment, training, higher education, and lifelong learning. Adult learners who don't read well face serious barriers as they attempt to earn a living wage, to support their children's learning, and to fully participate in civic and community life. They’re not capable to increase access to a wealth of print information that readers take for granted, and they miss out on the joy of reading for pleasure.
Although it’s unknown exactly how literate adults need to be, but certainty most of the parents in family literacy and other basic education programs are seeking higher levels of literacy or English language skills to reach their personal, family, and work-related goals. For this reason they enroll in adult education programs.
Many adult learners are engaged and working hard to support themselves and to care for their families. Some have developed interpersonal and other skills that have enabled them to function as competent, contributing adults in spite of their lack of basic skills. Still, they hope, and they believe that education will give them options to improve their lives.
Adult learners know they need help to achieve their educational goals, but are often unaware of what it will take to do so. Specifically, they may not realize the extent to which their reading ability is a barrier to their continued educational progress. Many of them enroll with the aim of earning a GED certificate, and expect to reach that goal in a matter of weeks or months. Some think, a skills brush-up is sufficient, but most will need to do considerably more work than they anticipate. Other learners need to focus only on math or writing, but for others, the problem is more basic. Reading ability shortfalls affect performance on nearly every part of the GED test battery, because they are written tests. Learners with some problems in reading must address them before they can hope to meet their goals.
Adults with reading problems can be estimated based on national surveys.
How many of these adults are enrolled in ABE or other basic skills programs? The groups for learner that programs serve vary, but the Third National Even Start Evaluation gives us an idea of the literacy skills of adult participants in family literacy. 11% of adults in recent years participated in adult basic education services at the 0-4 grade level. According to data from the ABE/GED programs, the number of low-level learners is higher. About 21% of adults recently entered with reading skills at 3.9 GE
Obviously these adults need reading instruction. What about the others; is reading instruction important only for beginners?
Research shows that mid-level readers (often the largest percentage of adult learners) have extremely varied reading needs, and although they have learned some word identification skills, they often don't make good use of these skills when reading. Once they come to a word they don't recognize, they may use the first few letters and/or context clues to guess rather than decode the word. Others require increasing fluency, building vocabulary, or improving comprehension.
As a result, even if they may not always understand the exact nature of their problems, many adults in basic education programs need to improve their reading. Accordingly to this, why don't teachers spend more time on reading?
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