Parkdale Project Read (PPR) is located in a downtown west Toronto community with a large immigrant population. Its literacy program incorporates an understanding of the effects of trauma and violence on learning. It has a partnership with a local consumer/survivor membership organization.

Regent Park Learning Centre (RPLC) is located in Regent Park, a large subsidized housing development in Toronto's downtown east neighborhood. RPLC is a multi-faceted community agency providing literacy programming exclusively to women.

Wellington County Learning Centre (WCLC) offers service to the rural residents of Wellington County (Southwestern Ontario). One-to-one tutoring is provided to learners at their homes and in the community.

The project was supported by an advisory committee that included an experienced practitioner researcher, literacy practitioners and research mentors from the Festival of Literacies Office (FOL) at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto (OISE/UT).

A. Background

The roots of this project go back several years beginning in 2002. It flowed out of two initiatives brought together by the staff of the Festival of Literacies Office at OISE/UT. Action Read (AR) and Parkdale Project Read (PPR) members held a number of on-going discussions regarding learner progress within community-based literacy programs. At the same time, members of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto (OISE-UT) Adult Literacy Research Circle1, including practitioners from Literacy for East Toronto (LET) were independently researching and discussing a similar theme.

These discussions underlined a need to broaden and deepen our understanding of "progress" in learners attending our programs. In particular, we recognized the importance of learners' voices in developing our shared understanding of what constitutes progress.

Early discussions among practitioners and learners, along with preliminary research, established that:

• Current measures of learners' progress are incomplete.
• Learners want multiple ways to talk about progress.
• Learners find talking about their learning useful and stimulating.
• Practitioners would benefit from a more complete understanding of the adult literacy learning process and the learning measures associated with that process.
• Provincial funders are asking for greater accountability of learning progress.

1 From 2001-2003 OISE/UT hosted the Adult Literacy Research Circle with cost-shared funding from MTCU and NLS. The Adult Literacy Research Circle was a circle of literacy practitioners and researchers exploring research ideas and sharing relevant knowledge from both research and practice.