January 2002

In Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States renewed interest is being given to the teaching of literacy, especially reading, to adults using research-based information. This paper discusses literacy as the mastery of graphics technology. Topics include The Power of Permanent Thought, Information Processing in Space, and The Guiding Light. Each topic is developed to show how the basic elements of the graphic medium - its relative permanence, its ability to be arrayed in space, and its use of the properties of light - work together to permit literates to generate and access massive collections of knowledge; to analyze and synthesize discrete information into coherent bodies of knowledge; and to perform complex procedures with accuracy and efficiency.

Like the teaching of reading to children, the teaching of reading to adults has many controversies. The same debates rage about the "whole language approach" versus the "word recognition", "decoding", or "phonics" approach in the field of adult reading as in the teaching of reading to children ( McCormick, 1988 ).

Additionally, there are debates about the purposes of teaching adults to read, generally framed in the larger context of teaching literacy. Some argue for literacy for "empowerment," "giving voice," or stimulating "critical awareness" while eschewing reading (literacy) instruction that is "technical," that is, aimed at teaching reading "merely" as a cognitive task (Street, 1984 ).

Though there is no doubting the importance of the many issues involved in these debates, our literature review has found no body of empirical evidence to argue convincingly that students learn better, go further in their education, or become more successful citizens in programs operated in line with one or the other point of view. And, indeed, there is often considerable ambiguity about just what the words being used actually mean to different people (Ellsworth, 1989).

Given the controversies and the variety of ways of viewing the job of teaching adults to read, in this paper I have opted to present an analysis of what learners might learn and what teachers might teach if we view reading as one aspect of the use of graphics technology to develop tools for communicating, developing knowledge, and accomplishing various tasks (Bruner, 1968). The advantage of this approach is that it presents a body of technical knowledge that may be learned within the context of any of the various ideologies or instructional belief systems held by teachers of adults. For instance, whether one subscribes to the "whole language" or "decoding" approaches to literacy instruction, or to "empowerment" or "functional, economic, utility" as aims of instruction, learners who wish to become literates or to improve their literacy must learn to recognize, interpret, and produce graphic symbols and devices such as forms, maps, and textbooks.