CHAPTER I


 INTRODUCTION



 There is an occupational necessity for millions of adults to
attain functional literacy. Others must up-grade their reading skills
or become casualties of the new technology. The stepped-up technology
is bringing rapid and continuous change. Constant on-the-job training
is necessary for a worker to remain contemporary in most occupations.
Much of this training must be self-education through the vehicle of
reading. Sources such as trade manuals, trade journals, and trade
papers enable the automobile mechanic, the plumber, and the television
repairman to stay current with the sometimes monthly innovations in
their trades. Few vocations are so lowly that change is not taking
place within them To keep up with these vocations, workers must read.
The domestic servant of yesterday is the home attendant of today. She
is expected to have a degree of specialized knowledge and sometimes she
has taken formal courses in order to gain that knowledge. The same is
true of the holders of other formerly non-specialized jobs.

 Many jobs are being phased out at a rapid rate. This is particu-
larly apparent in jobs which call for easily automated skills. Employ-
ment figures show that there are more jobs than ever; but many of them
go begging. Some of these are ones that students in adult basic education
can look forward to filling when they develop the educational skills that
the jobs demand.

 Nearly all vocations today call for more depth of knowledge and
more flexibility in learning than was true in the past. The time when a
person could learn a trade and be assured of a life-long occupation is
gone. To survive in the economic market place, adults must be able to
read on a level consistent with the new demands of their vocations and with
the demands of occupations to which they aspire. Reading is one skill that
enables a worker to prepare for another vocation as he sees his present one
falling victim to technological change.

 The market for unskilled labor is dwindling rapidly. No longer can
we tell a child that if he does not apply himself to his studies he will
grow up to be a ditch digger. Ditch diggers, in the old sense of the term,
are no longer needed. A major task facing society is the preparation of
illiterate unskilled adults for economic participation in the Great Society.

 Adult basic education is concerned with at least four types of
students. These include the totally illiterate adult, the high school drop-
out, the person whose reading skills are below the level needed to process
the general materials written for the broad adult population, and the high
school graduate who cannot read at the newspaper readability level. Most of
these people come from culturally deprived environments. Some are the
direct result of poor pedagogy. And some are specific reading disability
cases that have not been given the attention needed to teach them to read.