1. TEACHING ADULTS HOW TO READ AND WRITE Samuel Barnes Dr. Marquard English 1050, 23 1 December 2014

2. WHAT'S THE PROBLEM According to the U.S. Department of Education, National Institute of Literacy in 2013 the percentage of adults who are illiterate in the United States was 14%. This is because of the autonomous model of literacy being the most dominant teaching style today.

3. STATISTICS This is some of the data that was calculated last year. U.S. Illiteracy Statistics Data Percent of U.S. adults who can’t read 14 % Number of U.S. adults who can’t read 32 Million Percent of U.S. adults who read below a 5th grade level 21 % Percent of prison inmates who can’t read 63 % Percent of high school graduates who can’t read 19 %

4. THESIS Educational leaders should consider to do as Brian Street suggests and move to a more sociocultural way of teaching literacy. To do this they must adopt the ideological model of literacy over the autonomous model of literacy; because the autonomous model limits the learner’s ability to get as engaged in the class, and that will have negative effects in the real world. The ideological model is a more individualized way of thinking. It is also important because

5. SUPPORTING EVIDENCE Brian Street professor at Kings College in London states, “researchers and practitioners working in literacy in different parts of the world are beginning to come to the conclusion that the autonomous model of literacy, on which much of the practice and programs have been based was not an appropriate intellectual tool.” (418) Street is saying looking back on some of the practices and programs that the autonomous model has been used in, it was not what should have been used.

6. CONCLUSION My research question is what are some more effective ways of teaching reading and writing to adults? The answer is simply the ideological model of literacy. It is a more culturally sensitive view, it allows for more engagement in the classroom and it builds essential skills needed to survive.

7. WORKS CITED Street, Brian. “At Last.” Research in the teaching of English. Volume 39. (2005): 417-423. Print. "Illiteracy Statistics." Statistic Brain RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2014.