Assessing the Reading Levels of Incarcerated Adults for Educational Programming

Providing educational opportunities for adults who are incarcerated is important not only for the society we live in but also for the self-esteem of the adults who participate in them. Educational opportunities in local jails and prisons help adults establish and clarify goals and give them hope upon release. Interestingly, the first recorded educational program for adults incarcerated in a county jail was in 1789 at Philadelphia’s Walnut Street jail. For the first one hundred years, the instructors were pastors who taught theinmates how to read the Bible (Moeller, Day and Rivera, 2004). Their study reports that educational programs in correctional settings have expanded to all states and include the following: Adult Basic Education, General Educational Development (GED), Life Skills, Special Education, English as a Second Language, and vocational and college classes. Even though local jails offer educational programs, research shows that participation is very low (Harlow, 2003). According to Rankin(2005) prison illiteracy is a serious problem because 50 % of incarcerated adults are at the sixth grade literacy level. Vacca (2004) contends that educational programs for incarcerated adults not only provide much needed literacy instruction, but also a necessary reinforcement when they are released to society. Also, adults who address their educational needs while incarcerated are less likely to have challenges when release