National
Coalition for Literacy and ProLiteracy Hold NAAL Webcast
The
National Coalition for Literacy and ProLiteracy held a joint Webcast
April 27 on the newly released report, Literacy in Everyday Life, from
the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy. Sherrie Claiborne, NCL
President, and Marsha Tait, Senior Vice President-ProLiteracy, discussed
highlights of the important document. The report offers extensive information
on the literacy of Americans age 16 and older, including changes in
the literacy performance of this population since 1992. Some highlights:
median weekly earnings rise at each level of literacy; employment increases
with each higher level of prose literacy; women have closed the gap
with men in quantitative literacy; and women are doing better than men
in document and prose literacy.
Click here to view the webcast.
http://www.proliteracy.org/news/index.asp?aid=235
Click here
to download the power point presentation.
For the complete report, see http://nces.ed.gov/naal/.
New Report -- Literacy Behind Bars: Results From the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy Prison Survey
This report finds that “The average Prose, Document, and Quantitative literacy scores of the prison population were higher in 2003 than in 1992” and that “In 2003, 37% of the prison population did not have a high school diploma or a GED, compared with 49% in 1992.” These findings come from the National Center for Education Statistics’ just released report, Literacy Behind Bars: Results From the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy Prison Survey. To view the full report, click here
The
Health Literacy of America’s Adults-
Results from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy
The definition of health literacy used for the National Assessment of
Adult Literacy report was: “The degree to which individuals have
the capacity to obtain, process and understand basic health information
and services need to make appropriate health decisions.” NCL has
prepared a brief
summary of the results from the 2003 NAAL as it pertains to the
health literacy of adults in the United States. The implications for
both policy and for identifying new partners in our quest to increase
access to adult education are many.
NAAL Report
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) just released Literacy in Everyday Life, the most recent publication of the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL). This report provides extensive information on the literacy of American adults age 16 and older and changes in their performance since 1992. Furthermore, it examines the relationship between literacy and several demographic variables including education, occupation, and income.
Findings include the following:
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Women have closed the gap with men in Quantitative literacy. They are doing better than men in Document and Prose literacy.
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Younger and older adults have lower literacy than adults in other age groups.
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Median weekly earnings increased with each level of literacy.
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At each higher level of Prose literacy, more adults were employed full time.
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Approximately 51 percent of adults with Below Basic Document literacy and 43 percent with Below Basic Quantitative literacy believed their job opportunities were limited a lot by their lack of computer skills.
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The percentage of parents who never helped their school-age child with homework declined at each higher Prose literacy level.
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Approximately half of US citizens of voting age with Below Basic Prose and Document literacy reported voting in the presidential election of 2000 compared with 84 percent of citizens with Proficient Prose and Document literacy.
Full results are available at: http://nces.ed.gov/naal/
To
download, view and print the publication as a PDF file, please visit:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2007480
For past NAAL items please check the NAAL Archive