Part I A. What to Expect from a Literacy Program

Understanding what to expect from a literacy program is important for both program support and evaluation. This subject is detailed later, in Part 2, Program Administration, but it helps to have an overview when first considering the implications of establishing a program. The two most common stumbling blocks for new programs in libraries are the apparently low success rates and the behavior of students.

Success Rates

Research on what would constitute a reasonable success rate for a literacy program is scarce. This is not due to a lack of interest but rather the difficulty of acquiring the information. The goals of literacy programs are long term and the students often transfer from program to program and experience extended disruptions in their ability to attend classes at the scheduled times. Accurate measurement requires a level of continuity that is simply unavailable.

One program, however, has met with some success in this effort. The Consolidated Adult Education Performance Measures for Even Start Grantees in Texas has found a target measure that is both achievable and meaningful to attain. Roughly stated, they strive for 66% student retention and for 50% of their students to improve by one grade level each year. These success rates are for their established programs. New programs should anticipate lesser results.

It is important to understand that literacy is not easy to teach or learn. A new literacy program can, in a way, be like a new business. It takes most new businesses owners five years to see their first profit, but most get discouraged in the second or third year and give up. Similarly, a new literacy program takes about five years to mature. Success during this time can be scarce and may be unsatisfying until the third or fourth year.

Students

Literacy students do not focus on written information. This sounds obvious, but the implications are easily overlooked.

Signage for literacy students should not be just a bunch of words. Directional arrows and similarly meaningful pictures are needed. Similarly, advertise through television news stories, radio announcements, and online videos. Do not rely on written announcements and word of mouth. People commonly hide illiteracy, so their friends may not know to tell them about your program.

When literacy students are in the library, they will instinctively congregate and talk. Speech is how they communicate and behaving any other way is alien to them. They will need a place to talk to each other while they wait for each class to begin, during breaks, and after each class.

Students who are functionally illiterate may browse the DVD collection, but they only understand the titles, not the descriptions on the backs of the cases. They often read the words and feel like they are reading. But they do not understand complete sentences, only most of the individual words. If you ask them, they will say they can read, but may admit they would like to be better at it. Although they have some reading ability, they still depend on speech for communication and will discuss what they look at while browsing. This will take the form of speculating with others or asking about the content of a video when reading the cover would have answered their question. They similarly engage other people while surfing the Internet and will frequent media rich sites, like YouTube, that do not require extensive reading comprehension.