The "What's New!" page is intended to showcase current news, events, publications, projects, and any other items that concern literacy and the Region IV Hub. Check out past issues under What's New Oldies.
NEW! Search the
NWRLRC Software Buyer's Guide
Low literacy skills is a problem among the elderly. In the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS), 44% of adults age 65 and older were classified as functionally illiterate. This article announce a study on the relationship between literacy and health in a managed care setting. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has supported this study through a grant to the Prudential Center for Health Care Research. See attachment for story
Learning to Learn... with Style is rooted in a concern for increasing the chances of success for adult learners who have not previously experienced success in school. Through illustration, description and example, it offers an introduction to learning styles concepts for adult learners and provides them with tools to begin to recognize their own behavior and to make the most of their personal style strengths.
This teacher's guide provides background information on learning styles, model lesson plans, follow-up activity ideas, and a bibliography of recommended resources. It can be used with whole classes, in small groups, or on an individual basis.
The Hub IV Project is hosting the Pacific Star Schools Partnership Adult Literacy Program Educational Web site. Washington Service District 101, operator of the STEP/Star distance learning network, provides adult literacy and alternative education courses to learners throughout America by way of satellite downlinks or local cable systems.
The adult literacy programs are underwritten by a Star Schools grant awarded to ESD 101 through the Office of Educational Research and Improvement-U.S. Department of Education. The Pacific Star Schools Partnership, a multi-state consortium of educational providers including the Northwest Literacy Resource Center, offers three interactive broadcast courses for adult literacy/alternative education audiences: 1) GED Preparation, 2) Career Transitions, and 3) ESL/Citizenship.
Using the slogan created for the National Institute For Literacy's nation-wide campaign of "Literacy: It's A Whole New
World," California kicked off its statewide literacy promotions on April 2nd in Sacramento, California. Phil Yeh of Cartoonists Across America, an internationally known group which promotes literacy and environmental issues throughout the world, led a group of enthusiastic adults and young people in painting a literacy mural on a Yolo County Library bookmobile while it was parked on the lawn of the State Capitol. Check out the SLRC of CA What's New Page for the full stories and a series of pictures from the event.
Check out the many interactive news stories on the "Interactive Learning Resources" Web site. The learning modules are based on CNN San Francisco bureau's broadcasted news stories with the text and the actual video clip. A learner can read the story, view it, then take a vocabulary, mutliple choice and true and false test that is immediatley scored. A good resource for learners for improving English skills and for instructors in developing curriculum.
The goal of the Key to Community VIP project and its partners was to increase access to and familiarity with the voting process and other forms of community participation among segments of the population who are often excluded from more conventional civic communications based on their education level or cultural background. In collaboration with twelve adult education and literacy partners around the state of California, the non-partisan Key to Community Voter Involvement Project used a peer-designed model of involvement to address barriers to voting and other forms of civic participation.
Research from the Fall Election Study suggest that the Key to Community program and partnerships provided opportunities for "safe" dialogue, hands-on practice and user-friendly non-partisan information. Click here to view the complete study on-line.
Is there a literacy question that's keeping you up late at night? Questions about literacy manners, literacy relationships, literacy trivia? Caroline has the answers! Email her at cdobison@literacynet.org.
Dear Caroline:
I am an adult education teacher who wears many hats a few of which include teaching ESL and basic literacy, heading up our curriculum committee, and administering all of the literacy programs at our school. I have little time to read all the professional journals and attend all the relevant conferences. I need quick answers without spending time on researching the best resources. My question is: Where can I find groups of people on-line that are concerned with the same issues I deal with daily that I can communicate with and share ideas?
Signed,
Too Much to Do, Too Little Time to Do ItDear Too Much to Do, Too Little Time to Do It,
One good way to stay on top of what's going on in literacy is to subscribe to a Literacy Listserv. Listservs (or listservers) are a service providing distributed messages that form conferences and allow the archiving of files and messages which can be searched and retrieved. That means you can send email to the group of your particular interest and ask and answer questions. The most common form of a listserv is a Maillist (or Mailing List) which is an automated system (usually) that allows people to send e-mail to one address, whereupon their message is copied and sent to all of the other subscribers to the maillist. In this way, people who have many different kinds of e-mail access can participate in discussions together. To access one of these mailists, you must subscribe to it.There are many Internet Literacy Listserv discussion groups you can subscribe to with some great information. Here are some Web sites that provide more information.
Hub IV listserv page
National Adult Literacy Database Inc. (NALD) Listserv page
Colorado SLRC - Resource Notes, February 1996
Home | What's New? | Demographics | Hub IV Home Pages | Literacy Forum | Library | Links to Resources | Feedback
