Integrating Basic Skills into Vocational Teacher Education Curricula: Review of Literature.

This literature review was designed to help educators teach future vocational teachers how to integrate basic skills instruction into their work, and to guide the development of the preservice teacher education curriculum. Selected literature is organized into four chapters. The first chapter clarifies the concepts of "basic skills" and "integration." Chapter two contains information about how the review was conducted, including the sampling design employed by the reviewers and techniques used to collect and reduce the number of references. Procedures used to analyze and summarize the literature are also given. In chapter three, results are organized according to the following topical focus questions: (1) How are basic skills defined? (2) How successfully are those who are about to enter the workforce acquiring basic skills? (3) Why do those who are about to enter the workforce vary in the degrees to which they possess basic skills? (4) How can weaknesses in the basic skills of the workforce be remedied? (5) In what ways can liberal arts and vocational education be integrated? and (6) To what extent does integrating liberal arts and vocational education enhance the acquisition of basic skills? The document closes with a discussion of the competencies necessary for all preservice teachers as they exit the system. (Contains approximately 130 references.) (LL)