The issue…

Some 40 million American adults read at or below 5th-grade level, making it difficult to perform such everyday tasks as reading a newspaper, writing and addressing a letter, completing a job application, or calculating simple mathematical totals. Low literacy skills significantly impact adults’ ability to be productive as citizens, parents or workers.

The response…

In 1992, The Wallace Foundation began a national initiative to improve the quality and effectiveness of adult literary services, especially in public libraries, and to improve access to services for the millions of adults not currently enrolled in programs.

The strategies…

Wallace invested nearly $18 million in a variety of complementary strategies addressing three core needs: improving the quality of services in existing literacy programs; improving program accountability to better demonstrate learner outcomes; and improving access for the millions of adults not currently enrolled in adult literacy programs.

The accomplishments…

The Adult Literacy initiatives reached 50,000 adult learners:

• • More than 20 public libraries in eight states established high-quality literacy programs by investing in technology, recruiting and training tutors, and developing strategies to retain adult learners;
• Literacy Partners, Inc., a consortium of 12 leading literacy programs, formed the "What Works Literacy Partnership" to improve program quality through evaluation and assessment and improve program practice to produce stronger learning gains for students;
• With the Ford Foundation, the Foundation supported the Adult Literacy Media Alliance (ALMA) to develop TV411, a televised learning service for adults and their families.
  

Recent Publications …

A series of evaluations by Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation offer practical lessons for improving the persistence of adult learners in library-based literacy programs:

• So I Made Up My Mind: Introducing a Study of Adult Learner Persistence in Library Literacy Programs [2000];
• I Did It for Myself: Studying Efforts to Increase Adult Student Persistence in Library Literacy Programs [2001]. 
• As Long As It Takes: Responding to the Challenges of Adult Student Persistence in Library Literacy Programs [2003]