Maurice C. Taylor

This document is one chapter in a book entitled “Building on critical traditions: Adult education and learning in Canada.” Its purpose is to address four commonly held concerns about adult literacy and learning disabilities with a Canadian focus.

In the first section of the document, the authors describe the official definition of learning disabilities, adopted by the Canadian Association for Learning Disabilities in 2002.

This report, presented during the annual conference of the Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education (CASAE) in Vancouver in 2008, outlines a case study of an Aboriginal adult literacy centre. The study was framed by the concepts of guided participation and cognitive apprenticeship, which involve learning through guidance from an expert.

This study investigates how Canadians with limited literacy skills make sense of their patient-education experiences. The authors cite a Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) study indicating that 60 per cent of Canadians don’t have sufficient skills to manage their health and their health-care needs. That can mean difficulty in taking medications correctly or using health services effectively.

This document provides a summary of a research project which investigated adult literacy learning from two perspectives: an insider view of the informal learning practices of adult literacy learners; and the point of view from the mainstream media. Key findings of the research are outlined, accompanied by a possible range of policy implications at the local, provincial, and federal level.

This research summary outlines a study done on the informal learning practices of adults with limited literacy skills. The types of learning activities outside of formal and non-formal adult education that Level 1 and Level 2 adults engage in their everyday lives at home, work and the community were examined.

This report summarizes work done during a six month period of a two-year National Literacy Secretariat funded research project entitled, “Informal Learning and Media Perceptions of Adults With Low Literacy Skills”.The report sheds light on the question — How does the media portray adult literacy?

This resource guide provides information on informal learning. Barriers to the learning process are discussed, as well as how to help adult literacy learners overcome those barriers. The resource talks about adult learners' motivations for learning, their beliefs, and how culture affects learners.

This report is about ten Canadian people who were categorized as Level 1 and Level 2 adults, according to the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS). It talks about the types of informal learning that goes on in their lives and how they practice their literacy skills. Included is an overview of the project, ten stories or narratives about some remarkable adults who have discovered learning in their own way, and annotated bibliography.

This handbook, based on a project funded by the National Literacy Secretariat, is built around the idea that action research can help change literacy practices as instructors actually become researchers.

One of the problems in adult education has been the assessment of readability--how to tell whether a particular piece of writing is likely to be readable by a particular group of adult readers. Success is the extent to which they understand it, read it at optimum speed, and find it interesting. This study applies "readability formulas" to the Levenson Internal, Powerful Others, and Chance Scales.