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Adult Literacy Research Network

Adult Literacy - A women reading a bookIn November 2000, the National Institute for Literacy (NIFL) and the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education formed an Adult Literacy Reading Research Working Group (ALRWG). The Child Development and Behavior Branch program director was, and continues to be, a member of that working group. The ALRWG outlined and commissioned a synthesis of extant literature on adult literacy, using criteria similar to that used by the National Reading Panel. Because of the limited amount of experimental research published in the literature, reliable meta-analyses were not possible; however, a review of the available literature was produced. This document, available at http://www.nifl.gov/partnershipforreading/adult_reading/intro/
rrwg.html
, clearly highlights the need for additional research on adult literacy.

In August 2001, the NICHD, NIFL, the Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE), and the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education at ED convened an expert panel to discuss research needs and future directions in adult and family literacy. A summary document of this panel's discussion is available at http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/pubs_details.cfm?from=&pubs_id=5664; this document served as the basis for Adult Literacy Research Network (HD-02-004), which consisted of six research project grants (R01) and was jointly funded in fiscal year 2002 by the NICHD, NIFL, and OVAE. Researchers in this Network have designed, developed, and are implementing and testing the effectiveness of adult literacy interventions for low-literate adults, including the role of decoding, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension instruction in adult literacy, as well as the explicitness of instruction.

Over the five-year funding period, these research teams will screen nearly 73,000 adults with low-literacy skills to identify the more than 3,800 research participants needed for these studies. The principal investigators estimate that, in their targeted recruitment planning for these projects, more than 60 percent of those taking part in the studies will be minorities; most studies will have 30 percent to 60 percent African American participants, and between 20 percent to 50 percent Hispanic or Latino participants, many of whom will not be native speakers of English. The investigators are conducting this research at more than 80 sites in 16 different states: Alaska, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Washington. All six projects employ experimental designs, and at least four of these use combined quantitative and qualitative research methods. The studies are funded through 2007. Visit http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ovae/news/alrn.html for more information.