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Focus On Basics

Volume 7, Issue D ::: September 2005

New at NCSALL


NCSALL on the Web

Do you want to...

  • plan a professional development activity?
  • learn about the latest research on a particular topic in the field?
  • find a new teaching technique or idea?
  • prepare a proposal to seek additional funding?

Our Subject Index allows you to access easily all NCSALL publications by topic, including Accountability, GED, Learner Motivation, Curriculum Development, Assessment, Technology, Family Literacy, Math, Program Design, Practitioner Research, Writing, and more — the Subject Index includes more than 50 topics.


NCSALL Research Briefs

The Relationship of the Component Skills of Reading to Performance on the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) by John Strucker, Kentaro Yamamoto, and Irwin Kirsch (Educational Testing Service [ETS]). This brief highlights key findings from a study that is a subset of a larger study. It builds on the proposition that a reader’s comprehension performance is largely determined by his or her abilities in two areas — print components and meaning components — and that learners’ skills and, therefore, instructional needs, vary depending upon their relative strengths and weaknesses in these component areas.
http://www.ncsall.net/fileadmin/
resources/research/reading_ials_rb.pdf


“One Day I Will Make It”: A Study of Adult Student Persistence in Library Literacy Programs by John Comings, Kristin E. Porter, and Sondra Cuban, with Valerie Chase. This brief provides findings from the last report in the Literacy in Libraries Across America (LILAA) initiative, which was established in 1996 with the goal of helping public libraries around the country come up with new ways to increase adult learners’ persistence. In the study, the planning and implementation of strategies to improve student persistence were investigated in well-established library literacy programs in nine branches of five libraries. This Research Brief is adapted from the MDRC-produced Executive Summary of the same title. The complete report can be downloaded from MDRC’s web site at: http://www.mdrc.org/
publications/401/full.pdf


NCSALL Teaching Materials

Understanding What Reading Is All About. This guide provides teaching materials for ABE instructors to use in classrooms. Learners practice reading and writing as they gain a metacognitive understanding of the process of learning to read.
http://www.ncsall.net/fileadmin/
resources/teach/uwriaa.pdf


NCSALL Training Materials

Accessing and Using Research for Evidence-Based Practice. This brochure guides professional developers in accessing and using NCSALL materials to promote evidence-based practice. In addition to a concise overview of the key terms that underlie “evidence-based practice” (as defined by Institute for Education Science’s Director Grover Whitehurst), this brochure describes each of the major types of NCSALL publications.
http://www.ncsall.net/fileadmin/resources/Accessing_R-based_practice.pdf


NCSALL Research

Becoming Adult Learners: Principles and Practices for Effective Development, by Eleanor Drago-Severson, offers a way to support adults in adult basic education (ABE) and English for speakers of other languages programs (ESOL). The book grew out of the NCSALL Adult Development research (see http://www.ncsall.net/?id=258 and related articles on the NCSALL web site) and provides practical suggestions for applying adult development theory in the classroom, curriculum, program design, and policy. It’s available via Teachers College Press, at http://www.tcpress.com.

Updated 7/27/07 :: Copyright © 2005 NCSALL