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This article focuses on adult literacy throughout the world.With nearly 8 billion illiterate adults around the world programs like International Literacy Day try to focus on getting adults to learn how to read and write to help promote global unity. The article talks about Britian and its need to promote literacy and learning throughout its own country, and around the world.

Washington Commentary states that the lowest percentage of young adults (18-29 years of age) participated in the national elections for 2000. Several reasons influence the decisions of these young adults: parental focus and attitude, below proficient levels of understanding, and comprehension in history, social studies, and civics classes, and lack of practice or experience in political engagement. Although the article is informational, the content does not lead itself to the particular point of interest.

Lems describes the ways music has influenced her classroom. She talks about how her students are adults in an English language course. Through out the article she explains how through music based activities, positive attitude and affect, listening comprehesion, and oral and pronunciation practice helped her students become bilingual.

This article demonstrates the validation of the Young Adult Alcohol Consequences Questionnaire. It presents a study performed on college students. The latter participate in three sessions and take different tests from which data is collected. This study verifies the Young Adult Alcohol Consequences Questionnaire. It also demonstrates the direct relationship between heavy drinking and poor academic performance. Although the paper presents very important information, however, it does not provide enough background information.

The National Institute for Literacy serves as a national resource for adult education and literacy programs, coordinates literacy services and policy, and provides leadership for literacy in the United States. The Institute disseminates information on scientifically based reading research pertaining to children, youth, and adults as well as information about development and implementation of classroom reading programs based on the research. A great resource for articles and statistics.

The Report discusses how nearly half of all American adults have difficulty understanding and using health information. Many patients do not always understand health information, so they get less preventative health care and use expensive health services such as emergency care more frequently. By incorporating health knowledge into the existing curricula of kindergarten through 12th grades classes, as well as into adult education community programs, confusion in health literacy can be eliminated. The IOM makes valid points and suggestions for ending the confusion with health literacy.

In this article, Pickard and Reichelt discuss the alternative to Financial Literacy classes in high school, online courses for students and adults on personal finance. This study offers that online courses are very useful tool in gaining financial literacy. The article discusses the state of our financial literacy in the context of family finances. Pickard and Reichelt also give valuable statistics on financial literacy in regard to important demographics such as race and income level. The authors connect the issues with personal finance with the macroeconomic issues, which is very helpful for the reader.

The author reports on the study "To Read or Not to Read," which was released by the United States National Endowment for the Arts. The study found that Americans read less in 2007 compared with previous years. The study found that reading abilities for teenagers and adults have declined, whereas reading abilities for younger children have increased. The impact which the decline in reading abilities has had on American workers is discussed. The author states that the amount of time which people read on a daily basis has declined. (Abstract from EBSCO.)

Supiano explains the extreme need for financial literacy in college campuses, where students are adults, yet still have very little financial knowledge or independence. Supiano discusses that without the new initiatives for new finance classes at colleges, non-business students would graduate with very little financial literacy, but in many cases with a lot of debt. This article paints a very great picture of the situation of our college financial literacy. The article gives helpful knowledge into some examples of college literacy initiatives, and offers many possible solutions to the financial literacy problem among college students.

A film on OhioLINK. Why do girls demonstrate greater reading and writing ability than boys? Is the female brain hardwired for faster verbal development? Should men let women do the talking? This program studies language differences between the sexes and explores the possibility that many communication skills are gender-specific. Following two teams of well-educated adults as they undergo a crash course in broadcast journalism, the program documents wide variations between male and female abilities to verbally multitask, and examines distinctions in physical interaction, eye contact, and other behavioral factors. Clinical evidence regarding the significance of testosterone levels is also explored. (45 minutes)

'Mozart Effect' Revisted talks about the history of the Mozart Effect, which is a study method for students to use when withholding information. In this text, it''s combining the Mozart Effect with children. For example, Ten years ago Chinese University neuropsychologist Agnes Chan reported that adults who had been taking music lessons for more than 6 years had better memory for words.

Health literacy is basic reading and numerical skills that allow a person to function in the health care environment. Even though most adults read at an eighth-grade level, and 20 percent of the population reads at or below a fifth-grade level, most health care materials are written at a 10th-grade level. Older patients are particularly affected because their reading and comprehension abilities are influenced by their cognition and their vision and hearing status. Inadequate health literacy can result in difficulty accessing health care, following instructions from a physician, and taking medication properly. Patients with inadequate health literacy are more likely to be hospitalized than patients with adequate skills. Patients understand medical information better when spoken to slowly, simple words are used, and a restricted amount of information is presented. For optimal comprehension and compliance, patient education material should be written at a sixth-grade or lower reading level, preferably including pictures and illustrations. All patients prefer reading medical information written in clear and concise language. Physicians should be alert to this problem because most patients are unwilling to admit that they have literacy problems. (Am Fam Physician 2005;72:463-8. Copyright© 2005 American Academy of Family Physicians.)

During the 2008 Election, presidential candidates are using social networking sites to reach out to the youth. Demographers are saying this is the year that the "millennials" could determine the election with their huge numbers of registered voters. The candidates are listening and are doing whatever it takes to get the youth vote. The presidential nominees are using the new technology such as Facebook, Myspace, and YouTube to reach out to young adults. This article tells how the candidates are using different forms of technology to reach out to youth voters.

This article by Joanne Jacobs speaks about how students that speak English as a second language are their best students, and their worst students. Some of these work very hard to learn language proficiently and go on to test very highly and be very bright, others are very average and do not pass as proficient in the English language. Jacobs speaks of teachers being horrified by the numbers of students that are not proficient that have been in English speaking school systems since kindergarten. Jacobs has an interesting article and someone looking for a few good statistics would be smart by looking into this article.