Adult Literacy Grand Challenge Research
[1] The project that I chose is Adult Literacy: Transforming One Million Lives Through Literacy. The current status of this challenge is "awarded" meaning that it is complete and the various cash awards have been given to the winners. For this challenge and the groups that participated in it, the various teams created free apps that were downloaded by adults in the community surrounding each team. Technology is helping to meet this challenge because technology is what is helping with the low-literacy issue. Because low-literacy is being targeted using free apps that will be used by adults on their smart devices, technology is how the low-literacy rates will be targeted. The teams that won the challenge were divided into three tiers based on the number of downloads they got with tier one being the most downloads, tier two having the second most, and tier three having the least number of downloads. The winner of tier one was team World Education that won $150,000 for their contribution to adult literacy. The winner of tier two was team ProLiteracy who was awarded $100,000 for their contribution to adult literacy. The final tier, tier three, was won by team Adult Literacy Partners of Houston who was awarded $50,000 for their contribution to adult literacy.
[2] We All Can Read is a subscription service akin to having a full-time tutor 24 hours a day seven days a week just to help you read proficiently. This site provides a combination of video, audio, and text adding up to 720 lessons that must be completed in order to proceed. The user starts off by watching a video to explain the lesson, then they listen to audio that corresponds to the text they will be reading; they must proceed one lesson at a time through all 720 lessons while also completing 400 worksheets that are embedded in the curriculum and complete a quiz with 80% or higher every three lessons or so to move on. While this is something you can use on a computer, there is also an app that can be used, making a computer unnecessary if you do not have access to one. This is such a successful site/program/subscription service because it focuses on the phonics that are the foundation of literacy and targets it at adults rather than children. Phonics are typically no longer taught after the second grade, making many phonics options very childish, while this program is meant to teach adult learners phonics in a way that works for their more developed brains. There are many subscription options available, but no matter what option you choose you have the first 10 lessons free to you. This way you can test out the site and see if this is a good option for you, or if something else is going to be a better fit for you. Upon clicking the link above for We All Can Read you will see a letter written by Carole along with a picture of her and her account of what the program did for her. In short she loved it and it helped with her reading and spelling after not learning phonics as a child.
[3] SightPhonics is an online program that has been teaching adults learners how to read since 2000 and is available for the classroom as well as for your computer, tablet, or smart phone. SightPhonics is available in three separate forms so that you can use this in whatever way works best for you; these are actual books, DVD that can be used as audio as you follow along with the book, or online (which is what I will be detailing here). The online version teaches you by reading the instructions, sounds, and words aloud once they have been clicked on. There is also a feature that breaks down the words for you when you scroll over the word and then teaches you to put the sounds together to make the actual word. This program helps with spelling as well as reading by teaching you the various sounds in the words in a progression so that the sounds build on each other and you can then spell and read when see a word since you understand the sounds. This program was researched with the goal of teaching the most words and sounds possible in the least amount of time for people with busy schedules. This program uses letter sets and letter families to allow for quicker visual recognition. This program is fairly inexpensive with the price being only $85 for the entire year when you purchase the online option and comes with a six day money back guarantee if this ends up not being the program that works best for you. This is a successful service/program/subscription service because of the way that the material is presented; in small sections that build on each other to give a strong foundation. It was also created by a teacher who often worked with students and adults that were behind in their literacy and understands what needs to be taught to have it stick and work for these learners. Throughout the link above for SightPhonics you will see a variety of quotes/testimonials from different people describing their experience with the program. The first one you will come across is from a woman named Linda who uses the program to teach to her adult learners and has found it to work well with or without her instruction and to be helpful to her students.
[4] [5] Both of the above links are for Gemm Learning which is an online resource for people of all ages and learning abilities. The first link is for the specific adult learners page where it describes how Fast ForWord online brain training software will help you learn to read with 3-5 sessions a week of just 30 minutes each. Fast ForWord is a clinical strength program that can be used from the comfort of your home and done at your own pace. You start by taking an assessment and then an individualized sequence of programs is designed to meet your needs where you are at. The second link above is for the actual Fast ForWord page. Fast ForWord was made using more than 240 research studies, more than three million students across four countries, and was developed by four world-renowned neuroscientists. Each program, there are 10 total, has between five and seven games that target one or more cognitive, language and/or reading skill. This program taps into the brains ability to change and grow; you are asked to make hundreds of decisions quickly creating new neural connection and learning abilities. The goal is to remove underlying impediments to allow for higher achievement. This is designed to work quickly and is often done in four to six months which is about half the time of what the other two programs I have listed above. This is such a successful program because of the drastic amount of research that has been done coupled with the skilled scientists that worked to make this program fit for all learners. Being able to take an assessment and then have an entire program tailored to you is another useful part of the program that lead to its success. If you follow the first link for Gemm Learning above, on the right of the page you will see a testimonial from a 58 year old woman named Gail that used this program and has improved her reading speed and comprehension.
