The language in the survey may not be easily accessible to all adult students, and they may not have the background knowledge to understand all of the questions. Here are some ideas for helping adults make sense of and participate in the survey.

Discuss the purpose

• Talk about the purpose of the survey. Why read this? Do they want to read it?
  
  
• Discuss where these questions came from.
  
  
• Talk with students about how to approach this challenging reading task. What ideas do they have or how to read it? What reading strategies would they use?
  

Tap prior knowledge and opinions

• What does the President have to do with adult education?
  
  
• What decisions does the government make that affect our programs?
  
  
• Where does the funding from your program come from? (If students say "the government," follow up by asking "Where does the government get the money?")
  
  
• Do you think that educating adults is a good use of tax money? Why or why not?
  
  
• Have you ever read a survey before? What do you expect to see in a survey?
  

Limit and provide support for the reading task

• Provide some important background information that might help students make sense of the questions. For example, you might tell them that when the government (or any funder) funds adult education programs, they make decisions about how much to give, who is allowed to attend, what outcomes they expect to see for the money, etc. Or, you might explain that support for adult education has included more than funding for services; it has also included support for research, support for program improvement, etc. Many of the questions are asking about what kinds of support the candidates will give to adult education. What kinds of support do you think are important?
  
  
• Discuss the questions headings. What questions would you ask the candidates about these topics? Then you might compare to the questions that are there.
  
  
• Give small groups only 1 or 2 topic headings with the related questions to discuss and put in their own words.
  
  
• Rank the headings and only read the questions under the priority topics.