Adult literacy interventions often rely on models of reading validated with children or adult populations with a broad range of reading. Such models do not fully satisfy the need for intervention research and development for adults with low literacy. Thus, the authors hypothesized that a model representing the relationship between reading component skills would be predictive of reading comprehension for an adult population with low literacy and beneficial to adult literacy researchers. Using data from 174 adults participating in adult basic education and secondary education programs, the authors performed a path analysis of component skills' contribution to reading comprehension. The findings are clear that existing reading models do not describe this population. The implications are discussed in terms of instructional and curricular interventions.The National Assessment of Adult Literacy survey found that 43% of U.S. adults lacked the basic knowledge and skills needed to read and understand moderately dense texts, summarize, make simple inferences, determine cause and effect, or recognize an author's purpose (Kutner, Greenberg, & Baer, 2005). More than 60 million (79%) of these adults with low literacy were between 16 and 64 years old, indicating that a large literacy deficit exists among the current and future U.S. workforce (Kutner, et al., 2005;Kutner, et al., 2007;U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). To address the economic, civic, and cultural implications of this literacy deficit, Title II of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA; P.L.105-220) supports basic literacy programs for adults.WIA requires that funded adult education (AE) programs use evidenced-based approaches to service delivery to ensure that participants receive effective instruction. Intervention researchers attempting to address this requirement are faced with the challenge of understanding which reading skills this population lacks and in which reading processes they experience breakdowns that impede reading development (Kruidenier, 2002;Rapp, van den Broek, McMaster, Kendeou, & Espin, 2007). Although several studies of adults with low literacy provide evidence of individual reading components' contributions to reading, no theory-based models of reading exist that represent the processes in which adult struggling readers engage (Comings & Soricone, 2007). Thus, as a substitute for such a model, adult literacy interventions often rely on theory, research, and models of reading that are based on studies of children or adults with a broad range of reading abilities (Kruidenier, 2002;McShane, 2005).The current approach to providing evidence for interventions is pragmatic, but ultimately may be incomplete or inaccurate because of such factors as a high prevalence of learning disabilities among adult literacy learners (Patterson, 2008) and developmental and experiential differences between children and adults (e.g., Bell & Perfetti, 1994;Davidson & Strucker, 2002;Gough, Hoover & Peterson, 1996;Greenberg, Ehri, & Perin, 2002;Sabatini, 2002). Thus, pro...

The following insights into the reading skills of 312 participants in adult basic and secondary education programs are based on a principal components analysis of reading components' contributions to variance in reading comprehension. Overall, 75% of variance was explained by four composite variables representing word skills, language comprehension, memory, and fluency errors (which was nonsignificant). Differences existed in the degree to which the three significant components contributed to variance by adults' functional reading level. These differences demonstrate a progression in which lowest ability readers seem to primarily draw on word skills and secondarily on memory, mid-level readers begin to integrate language comprehension skills with word reading and memory, and better readers engage in a balance of all three skills and abilities, yet remain below the 25th percentile in reading comprehension. Intervention developers and instructors are encouraged to not view this population as homogeneous but rather to be sensitive to the differences in reading behaviors among adult education participants.

The United States' National Institute for Literacy's (NIFL) review of adult literacy instruction research recommended adult education (AE) programs assess underlying reading abilities in order to plan appropriate instruction for low-literacy learners. This study developed adult reading ability groups using measures from power tests and speeded tests of phonemic decoding, word recognition, fluency, and comprehension. A multiple cluster analysis of these reading ability scores from 295 low-literacy AE participants yielded seven reading ability groups. These groups are described in terms of instructional needs relevant to an instructor's planning and activities. Keywords adult education; low literacy; readingIn the United States, adult basic and secondary education (AE) programs annually serve approximately 2.8 million adults with low literacy (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2006). Some of these AE participants read very well and enroll in AE only to earn a high school equivalency credential, while some have less than the necessary literacy skills needed to perform simple and everyday literacy tasks (Kutner, Greenberg & Baer, 2005;Kutner et al., 2007). Between these extremes, many AE learners are able to read well enough to function in their homes or current jobs by using compensating strategies or skills, but lack the literacy skills needed to achieve higher education or employment goals. Given this diversity of learners, AE programs do not simply offer generalized instruction to all learners, nor refer to a learner's age or previous educational attainment to determine their instructional needs (McShane, 2005), as is done in elementary and secondary school settings.A common practice among AE programs is to use functional assessments, such as Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System (CASAS, 2001) or TABE: Tests of Adult Basic Education (CTB/McGraw-Hill, 1997), to place learners in leveled instructional programs. CASAS and TABE tests include stimulus material authentic to literacy demands experienced by adults (e.g., newspapers, advertisements, forms, documents), and thus differ from K-12 assessments that emphasize prose and expository text passage comprehension. Although functional assessments provide information about how well adults use literacy in daily life, they do not necessarily correspond with reading instruction needs (McShane, 2005;Strucker & Davidson, 2003). Thus, the National Institute for Literacy's (NIFL) review of adult literacy instruction research recommends AE programs should assess underlying reading abilities in order to plan appropriate instruction for low-literacy learners (Kruidenier, 2002a;McShane, 2005). Research indicating which of the many underlying reading abilities AE programs should assess and, therefore, how they might best group learners for instruction, is less clear (Kruidenier, 2002b). Thus, this study explores one scheme for classifying adult literacy learners in groups based on commonalities in phonemic decoding and word recognition accuracy and rate...

Research indicates that about a quarter of adult students separate from formal adult basic and secondary education (ABE/ASE) programs before completing one educational level. This retrospective study explores individual dispositional factors that affect motivation during learning, particularly students’ goals, goal-directed thinking and action based on hope theory and attendance behaviors, and self-perceptions of competency based on affective domain attributions about external and internal obstacles to learning and employment, and demographic factors. Among 274 ABE/ASE students, those learners who made an education gain in 1 year significantly differed from those who did not in only a few dispositional or demographic variables; and by educational level they significantly differed in a wide variety of dispositional and demographic variables. These findings suggest researchable questions and programmatic considerations that may lead to future innovations that improve learner persistence.

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