Welcome to the Institute for the Study of Adult Literacy at The Pennsylvania State University. We are a proud part of the College of Education at Penn State. You may access the web pages of ISAL's initiatives as well as the staff contact page from the links provided below.

America Reads at Penn State is a project that started due to the America Reads Challenge, a national campaign calling on all Americans - including businesses, education institutions, citizens, families, and college students - to help every child learn to read well. Since its inception in 1997, the America Reads Program at Penn State has hired, trained, and placed thousands of Penn State students to provide educational support to hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvania's children throughout the Commonwealth.

The Pennsylvania Literacy Corps establishes collaborative partnerships between higher education institutions and providers of adult basic and literacy education for the purpose of engaging college students in local efforts to help overcome the illiteracy problem in the Commonwealth - there are four million adults in Pennsylvania who are in need of help to improve their basic skills.

Two new publications that support the work of the Pennsylvania Literacy Corps are now available from Dr. Sheila Sherow (2006). Click on the titles below to access these resources:

PA Literacy Corps
Theory to Practice: Adult Teaching & Learning Strategies For Tutors

PA Literacy Corps
Applying Research to Practice: Teaching & Learning Strategies
Second Language Acquisition & English as a Second Language

Pennsylvania Family Literacy programs address the literacy needs of all members of the family while promoting parents' involvement in their children's education as their children's first teachers and most powerful influence on their academic success. These programs improve educational opportunities of eligible families by integrating early childhood education and adult education in a unified program. They also strive to build on existing community resources, implementing and maintaining local educational partnerships for family learning.

The Workforce Education Research Center (WERC) has been established to help adult education practitioners use Pennsylvania’s Work-based Foundation Skills Framework to develop programs, curricula, alternative assessments, and/or select evidence-based instructional materials and resources appropriate for teaching pre-employed adults and incumbent workers interested in developing work-related basic skills. The Work-based Foundation Skills Framework includes basic workplace skills, basic employability skills, basic workplace knowledge, and lifelong learning skills. Various products, based on this Framework, have been developed and are available to Bureau of Adult Basic and Literacy Education (ABLE) agencies and partners.