• Adult Literacy Learners difficulties in reading - Interim report (pdf 526 KB)
• Developing Adult reading skills - Interim report summary (pdf 151 KB)

• Adult literacy learners difficulties in reading: an exploratory study
• Effective Teaching and Learning: Reading - Summary Report
• Effective Teaching and Learning: Reading
• Oral reading fluency in adults
• Developing adult teaching and learning: Practitioner guides - Reading

This project investigated the range of approaches to the teaching of reading to adult learners, changes in learners' attainment and attitudes, and the correlation between the two, and aimed to make recommendations for effective practice, for intervention studies and for increasing learners' employability.

Learners' attainment and attitudes have been measured at three points (pre, mid and post), and teaching sessions observed systematically, in 59 classes, 23 in academic year 2003/04, 36 in 2004/05. The achieved pre-test sample was 454 learners, and the retained post-test sample was 298.

Statistical analyses correlated variations in pedagogy with changes in learners' attainment and attitudes.

The aims of the proposed project were to:

• establish, from the literature and from the preceding investigation of adults learners' difficulties in reading (project B2.2), what are currently held to be effective pedagogical practices in teaching reading in adult literacy provision, as a basis for the observation of practice
• investigate in depth:
  • the range of pedagogical practices which occur 'naturally', that is in the normal course of events and not as part of intervention studies, in the teaching of reading to adult learners in England 
  • changes in adult learners' attainment in and attitudes to reading over the course of an academic year, and 
  • the correlation between the different pedagogical practices and any such changes and from theory and the findings to:
• identify possible gaps in the pedagogical repertoire (e.g. is account taken in adult literacy of the school-level evidence on the teaching of phonics?) 
• make recommendations to the profession about effective practices and undertake detailed communication of the findings to teacher trainers for maximum impact 
• generate hypotheses for investigation in intervention studies.

 A report of findings will be published towards the end of the year (2006).

Interim findings:

• From analysis of the attitudes questionnaire data, a small but
  significant increase in learners' self-confidence 
• From analysis of the reading assessment data, no statistically
  significant change from pre- to mid-assessments, or from mid- to post-assessment 
•  A weak correlation of regular attendance with better progress.