An ethnographic study investigated four adult beginning reading (ABR) classes in several adult learning centers in order to determine the effect of an adult's age and developmental phase on his or her behavior and attitudes in the learning-to-read process. For 9 months, a four-member research team conducted on-site observations, compiled extensive field notes, and correlated data from sources such as project proposals, adult learning center newsletters, ABR teachers and students, adult education students and teachers, and staff of the Virginia State Department of Education. After developing snapshots and sketches of 14 adults for over 60 adult beginning readers, researchers concluded that no relationship existed among age, phase of adult consciousness and adult development, dominant motivation, and reading behaviors. The study supported the postulate that both growth expansion and anxiety frustration can serve as the dominant motivation for beginning to read. Because the researchers found such wide variations among phases of adult development and adult consciousness, they recommended that adult beginning readers be given both group and individual instruction. (MN)