Project

The objective of the Forward Trainer project is to create and test a basic awareness course for people who are likely to meet persons with reading and writing difficulties in their professions. The project has arisen against the background of what was revealed and confirmed by international literacy surveys, i.e. even in the European countries that scored best very roughly a third of the adult population do not read and write well enough to function in a satisfactory way in our complex modern society.

Background
International studies in reading skills among adults were carried out in two phases between 1994 and 2000. The results of these surveys served as eye-openers to many teachers, union representatives and politicians. Read more … 

Objective
It is the intention of Forward Trainer to contribute to general European awareness of reading and writing difficulties. Read more … 

Dissemination
Creating general awareness about reading and writing difficulties is the primary purpose of Forward Trainer. After the testing of the course we are going to run a number of national courses that will function as both awareness-raising and dissemination of our experience from the first phase of the project. Read more … 

Background
The International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) and Second International Adult Literacy Survey (SIALS) were carried out in two phases between 1994 and 2000 in twenty-two countries. The results of the surveys served as eye-openers to many teachers, union representatives and politicians.

The surveys showed, surprisingly, that large parts of the adult people had a very poor reading performance. In some countries as many as around 40 – 50 % of the adult population were not considered to have sufficient reading skills to function well in their modern societies. The fact was that even in Scandinavia for example, where the results were well above average, those who were considered to have insufficient skills made up 30 % of the population.

This information made certain countries take action to do something about these challenges. The aim of our project is to support these actions and even to raise awareness about the results in those countries that did not take part in the studies mentioned above.

Read more about the surveys
Literacy in the Information Age, the final report from the first survey, was published in 2000. Recently the ALL survey (Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey), although carried out in only six countries, largely confirmed the IALS/SIALS results.

Links

Literacy in the Information Age - The full report can be downloaded from http://www1.oecd.org/publications/e-book/8100051e.pdf

A summary of the report is available from:
http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/89-588-XIE/about.htm

A good place to view the results of the ALL surveys is:
http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/89-603-XIE/89-603-XIE2005001.htm

A very brief overview of both IALS and ALL can be found at:
http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/all/index.asp

Objective
It is the intention of Forward Trainer to contribute to general European awareness of reading and writing difficulties. We do this by producing a fairly short awareness course that we will test as a Grundtvig 3 course and invite others to use. During the project period this course will also be offered as national courses in the national languages of the countries involved.

The course will try to empower the teachers, trainers, tutors and others in our target group with specific knowledge, information, pedagogical skills and approaches to supporting persons with reading and writing difficulties.

The project’s specific objectives are:

• to collect the experiences of educators that are already offering support for reading and writing difficulties, especially dyslexia

• to compile a handbook for teachers, trainers, tutors, shop stewards on how to use different pedagogical approaches that help adults with reading and writing difficulties/dyslexia learn better. The handbook will include some instructions and examples, and will be presented in different languages in the project’s web page.

• to validate this handbook throughout a test-run course

• to use the final outcomes as a base for a series of Grundtvig 3 courses and national courses

• to ensure the dissemination of these results through the inclusion of this course in the G3 catalogue by some of the partners involved in the project, as well as disseminating the information about the courses by all possible means: the project’s web page, brochures, through the partners’ networks, etc.

Dissemination
Creating general awareness about reading and writing difficulties is the primary purpose of Forward Trainer.

After the testing of the course we are going to run a number of national courses that will function as both awareness-raising and dissemination of our experience from the first phase of the project.

The Forward project revealed a lot of difference between the various countries in their attitude to reading and writing problems. It is not always easy to make the authorities in some countries accept the fact (or even the possibility) that a considerable percentage of their population have problems with reading and writing.

The dissemination strategies therefore direct themselves to a wider range of people than teachers and teacher trainers. It is important to reach people who are in influential positions, and among those we count politicians, representatives of the social partners, staff from HR departments in companies and people from employment agencies.

It is our hope that we may strengthen national strategies through a common European project that relates to the same problem. When we get down to the level of the national courses, we hope to reach a wide audience through information via unions of employees, confederations of employers, the civil service and the other networks of our various partners. The project web pages will continue to be used in connection with dissemination, information about project results and discussions.