Book Description
Most efforts to eradicate illiteracy fail because they emanate from a political and social perspective that has little bearing on reality. In this thought-provoking book, B. Allan Quigley challenges the faulty assumptions and misguided agAndas that shaped past efforts at literacy education. Quigley offers a new view of illiteracy that starts with the learner and takes into account a broad array of work, family, and cultural considerations.Drawing on more than twenty-five years of his teaching and administering of literacy programs, and also on his experience forming literacy policy and conducting research, Quigley reveals some unrecognized truths about who illiterates are and what they need and want in the way of educational opportunities. Advocating a defocus of attention onto the learner, Quigley also points to the practitioners currently working in the field as the key to improving the effectiveness of literacy education. This guide gives those adult educators and trainers concrete suggestions and alternatives for their work, and provides them with historical and evolutionary frameworks that they can use to shape a new philosophy of adult literacy and improve their practice.