An investigation of the underlying skills of adult illiterates

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the underlying skills of a group of Maltese adult illiterates, attending literacy courses. These adults were assessed at the beginning of the literacy programme to ensure the validity and reliability of the research at hand. Phonological tasks ranging in phonological complexity and difficulty were administered to these adults, as well as to children reading at the same level. Interviews were conducted with the adult illiterates to examine the reasons for their limited literacy attainment. Adult literacy instructors and primary school teachers were also interviewed to analyse the teaching methods used. The findings of this study indicate that the adult illiterates performed very well in some phonological tasks and very poorly in some others. These findings imply that some phonological skills can be acquired implicitly, while some others are acquired explicitly. Thus suggesting the importance of early explicit intervention with young children experiencing reading difficulties.