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The adult learning progressions
Listening, speaking, reading, writing and numeracy demands are embedded in many of the tasks that adults need to undertake in real life across a wide variety of contexts. The progressions provide a framework and language for describing the challenges that adult learners may have to overcome to meet these demands.
In order to develop adult learners’ expertise, tutors need to recognise the learners’ current knowledge and skills (in whatever areas they are demonstrated). Tutors and learners together build on these and transfer the learning to more and more different contexts, with increasing independence for learners. As they develop their expertise, adult learners are able to meet the demands of a wider range of tasks with increasing ease and independence.
The learning progressions describe the main elements or strands of learning that adults require in order to:
- Listen with understanding
- Speak to Communicate
- Read with Understanding
- Write to Communicate
- Make Sense of Number to Solve Problems
- Reason Statistically, and
- Measure and Interpret Shape and Space.
This Learning Progressions for Adult Literacy and Numeracy: Background Information resource provides the theoretical basis for each strand and for the progressions within each strand.
The progressions within each strand are described in detail in the two accompanying resources, Learning Progressions for Adult Literacy and Learning Progressions for Adult Numeracy. Note that each of these books contains a glossary of relevant terms.
The supporting tutor resource booklets for reading, writing, number, measurement and statistics explain how tutors can identify learners’ needs and the demands of a variety of tasks. They also provide activities that can be used to teach aspects of each strand.