Study of Adult Reading Acquisition (SARA)

The Study of Adult Reading Acquisition (SARA) project is one of several studies on adult literacy done under funding from the National Center on Adult Literacy at the University of Pennsylvania. With the cooperation of adult literacy programs in the northern Delaware and Philadelphia area, 100 adult students have been tested repeatedly over a nine-month period on basic and applied reading skills. The goals of the study are (a) to determine the relationship of basic processing skills such as decoding and rapid word recognition to silent reading speed and comprehension, (b) to track the course of improvement in basic and applied skills as a result of instruction, and (c) to identify patterns of skill strengths and weaknesses that characterize adult learners. After an initial battery of tests that included measures of reading comprehension, listening comprehension, word recognition, and sentence processing, a group of tests for basic and applied skills was administered every five to six weeks. Mid-course and exit batteries were also administered, and participants were interviewed for their educational backgrounds, literacy habits, and attitudes toward reading and writing.