NAAL Supplemental Studies: Basic Reading Skills and the Literacy of the America's Least Literate Adults:

Basic Reading Skills and the Literacy of the America's Least Literate Adults: Results from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) Supplemental Studies: NCES 2009481

The 2003 NAAL assessed the English literacy skills of a nationally representative sample of 18,500 U.S. adults, age 16 and older. It was the 1st national assessment since the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS).

The Adult Literacy Supplemental Assessment (ALSA) was given to adults unable to successfully answer the core literacy tasks. Instead of completing the main literacy assessment, these adults completed the ALSA. The Fluency Addition to NAAL (FAN) was given to all adults who participated in the NAAL project following the completion of the main literacy assessment or the supplemental assessment.

The Adult Literacy Supplemental Assessment [ ALSA ] and the Fluency Addition to NAAL [ FAN ] look at the literacy strengths and weaknesses of the least literate adults, those whose literacy level would prevent them from completing the "main NAAL."

ALSA measured basic, word-level literacy skills. It consists of 31 tasks such as letter identification, number identification, word identification, and word reading, and 13 tasks that assess higher literacy skills, such as text searching and inference. There also are 35 tasks related to background knowledge.
~ What letter is this?
~ Please read this [number] for me.
~ Please point to the word "water."
~ What does the label say people should do if they take too much of this?
~ What kind of information does this section provide?
~ Have you ever seen this before? [to determine participants' background knowledge]

FAN measured oral reading fluency: reading aloud, in English, from letter lists, digit lists, word lists and text passages. Directions and questions are provided in English or Spanish.

~ total words read correctly
~ total words read per minute (whether correctly or not)
~ words read correctly per minute
~ words read correctly as a percentage of total words read

Some Findings:

~ ~ 7 million adults, about 3%, could not complete even the most basic literacy tasks in the main assessment and were given the supplemental assessment.
~ ~ Adults who took the main literary assessment were able to read, on average, 98 words correctly per minute (wpm), in comparison to 34 wpm by those in the supplemental assessment.
~ ~ The average Basic Reading Skills [ BRS ] score for adults in the supplemental assessment was 64 points lower than the score for adults in the main assessment population.
~ ~ There was a higher percentage of older adults, 65 and older, in the supplemental assessment.
~ ~ The % of adults living below the federal poverty threshold in the Below Basic prose and supplemental assessment populations was also higher than the percentage of adults in these populations from other income categories. Among adults with Below Basic prose literacy, 44 % lived in families with incomes below the poverty line, as did 58 % of adults in the supplemental assessment.

Educators, policymakers, and others can also use this previously unavailable literacy information to develop programs and materials that aid the least-literate Americans in such areas as employment, health, and civic participation.