Prison Literacy: Implications for Program and Assessment Policy.

A READER'S GUIDEIn an effort to make this information as accessible as possibleto our intended audiencespolicymakers and legislators,corrections administrators, and educators in prisons and jailswehave distilled the implications of research findings into questions(See Appendix A) to consider when studying the following:the effectiveness of a given prison-literacy programth .?. best policy to implementthe most helpful laws to passthe best ways to set up and manage an effective literacy programinsidethe best ways to teach people in prisonNo one institution is likely to answer "yes" to all the questions,or to be able to tackle all questions at once. However, our hope isthat these distillations will help focus future directions in ourcorrectional facilities so that they may be correctional andresponsive to some of the most effective efforts in our countrytoday. The questions are arranged topically so that readers mayconsider a single area at a time (technology, for example).Perhaps a useful approach would be for prison or jailadministrative and educational personnel, ideally includingrepresentative inmates, to discuss a priority ranking of thequestions for consideration. In this way, broad goals might be set,with focus on a number of specific goals to be achieved in theshort term and reserving others for the longer term.Subsequent chapters provide the contexts from which thequestions were derived. Although the book is essentially focused onprograms and program assessment in prisons and jails, the earlychapters provide background to the last two chapters which arespecifically about programs and their assessment.We hope that veterans in correctional work will find these pagesas useful as newcomers and others who may be searching forinformation and answers. There is plenty of work for all of us.Anabel NewmanWarren LewisCaroline Beverstock1 4NATIONAL CENTER ON ADULT LITERACYxlii