Practice makes Perfect: Shaping Influences on Informal Reading Among Adult Developing Readers

Abstract: This study of 3 adult literacy learners ’ outside class text interactions, indicate that quantity and quality of reading practice may be influenced by the ways prior experiences have helped shape their beliefs and understandings about reading development, access to text, and the nature of family relationships related to learning and literacy. The research on reading instruction for adult developing readers is so limited that many gaps in the knowledge base can only be filled using research on children. For example, a 2002 report of the Reading Research Working Group aimed at synthesizing research on adult reading instruction fell back frequently on research in K-12 in order to develop a relatively complete picture of evidence-based practice (Kruidenier, 2002). The did so despite the author’s caution that adult literacy education contexts differ markedly from K-12, and that these differences “have the potential to affect reading instruction outcomes ” (p.12). Unfortunately, we know little empirically about the ways in which adulthood influences reading acquisition and development. Therefore questions about the appropriateness of importing research done on a youth population to adults are relatively unexplored