National Adult Literacy Database

As a program manager and curriculum developer, the author has spent most of his career at the ground level of adult literacy education practice. He has investigated how adult literacy students take on the process of learning to read and how teachers, particularly volunteer tutors, have sought to help them.

The author reflects on how his efforts to increase his understanding of adult literacy reading theory and practice have affected his own position. He wants to open a discussion about these insights amidst the conflicting models found within the field, notwithstanding the increasingly pragmatic shift toward a balanced perspective.

The author divides his work into an introduction; an overview of balanced reading theory; core presuppositions; integrated reading theory and the role of successive approximation; concluding remarks; and references.