What is NAAL?

Throughout this blog you’ll see me make mention numerous times of The National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL). As it underpins so many of the statistics I mention, and as it’s used in so many other sources linked to on this blog, let’s dig into this piece of research a little further.

First, here is how NAAL defines itself:

The 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy is a nationally representative assessment of English literacy among American adults age 16 and older. Sponsored by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), NAAL is the nation's most comprehensive measure of adult literacy since the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS).

In 2003, over 19,000 adults participated in the national and state-level assessments, representing the entire population of U.S. adults who are age 16 and older, most in their homes and some in prisons from the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Approximately 1,200 inmates of federal and state prisons were assessed in order to provide separate estimates of literacy for the incarcerated population.

By comparing results from 1992 and 2003, NAAL provides the first indicator in a decade of the nation's progress in adult literacy. NAAL also provides information on adults' literacy performance and related background characteristics to researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and the general public.

This assessment resulted in a fascinating portrait of American adult literacy, one that collected participant information about “age, race/ethnicity, gender, language, education, income…past and present participation in welfare; job-related training; use of technology, including computers, e-mail, and the Internet; health-related conditions and activities; and literacy practices such as parents' reading to their children.”

In addition to the assessment of 1,200 state and federal inmates in its prison component, NAAL also measured the health literacy of participants – their ability “to use literacy skills to read and understand health-related information” – and a supplement specifically related to those adults whose low literacy skills prevented them from completing the main NAAL survey. 

And while only six states participated in the State Assessment of Adult Literacy (SAAL) - Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, and Oklahoma - its "statistical models" helped the National Center for Education Statistics produce "estimates of the percentage of adults lacking Basic Prose Literacy Skills (BPLS) for all states and counties in the United States in 2003 and 1992."(You can compare states or even counties here).