Few Advances in Adult Literacy Made in Last Decade

December 23, 2005 -- Adult literacy dropped or was unchanged across every level of education between 1992 and 2003. About 11 million adults in the U.S. are not literate and 30 million adults have below basic English skills, according to a study sponsored by the National Center for Education Statistics.

The National Assessment of Adult Literacy measured three types of literacy: prose, the ability to read and understand information presented in sentences and paragraphs; document, understanding and using other printed material such as bus schedules and prescription labels; and quantitative, using and understanding numeric information presented in texts or documents, such as interpreting information in a graph. Gains were made by black adults on every type of task tested and by adults overall in basic-level computational tasks. However, Hispanics declined on all levels. The study represents a population of 222 million adults age 16 and older and is based on a sample of 19,000 adults tested in their homes, college housing, or prisons.

In response to a request from the National Center for Education Statistics for assistance in setting performance standards for the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, the National Research Council report Measuring Literacy: Performance Levels for Adults recommended that the results be reported using five levels – nonliterate in English, below basic, basic, intermediate, and advanced. The report also discusses the committee’s recommendations for future literacy assessments.

• Measuring Literacy: Performance Levels for Adults 2005

• National Assessment of Adult Literacy