Adult Literacy in America - National Center for Education Statistics ...

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Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv The Literacy Skills of America’s Adults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvi Literacy and Social and Economic Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix Reflections on the Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xx Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Defining and Measuring Literacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Conducting the Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Reporting the Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 About This Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 A Note on Interpretations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 CONTENTS Section I: The Prose, Document, and Quantitative Literacies of America’s Adults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Results for the Total Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Trends in the Literacy Skills of Young Adults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Results by Level of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Results by Parents’ Level of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Results by Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Results by Race/Ethnicity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Educational Attainment and Racial/Ethnic Differences . . . . . . . . 34 Age and Racial/Ethnic Differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Country of Birth and Racial/Ethnic Differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Results by Type of Illness, Disability, or Impairment . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Results by Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Results by Sex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Results for the Prison Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Contents ......iii
iv ......Contents Section II: The Connection Between Adults’ Literacy Skills and Their Social and Economic Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Literacy and Voting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Literacy and Reading Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Frequency of Newspaper Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Aspects of Newspaper Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Reliance on Print and Nonprint Sources of Information . . . . . . . 59 Literacy and Economic Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Poverty Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Sources of Nonwage Income and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Literacy and Employment, Earnings, and Occupations . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Employment Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Weeks Worked . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Earnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Occupations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Section III: Interpreting the Literacy Scales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Building the Literacy Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Defining the Literacy Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Interpreting the Literacy Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Prose Literacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Document Literacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Quantitative Literacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Estimating Performance Across the Literacy Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Missing Responses to Literacy Tasks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Performance in the Lowest Literacy Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Population Diversity within the Lowest Literacy Level . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Appendix A — Overview of Procedures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Sampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Weighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Background Questionnaires . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Literacy Assessment Booklets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 Survey Design: BIB Spiralling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 Training the Data Collection Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Page 1 and 2: ADULT LITERACY in America A First L
Page 3: U.S. Department of Education Richar
Page 7 and 8: vi ......Contents Figures and Table
Page 9 and 10: viii ......Contents Table 3.1: Perc
Page 11 and 12: Our thanks go to all those who carr
Page 13 and 14: xii ......Preface the last decade
Page 15 and 16: xiv ......Preface During the first
Page 17 and 18: adults received proficiency scores
Page 19 and 20: • The literacy proficiencies of y
Page 21 and 22: • Adults in the lowest level on e
Page 23 and 24: Historians remind us that during th
Page 25 and 26: xxii ......Executive Summary
Page 27 and 28: 2 ......Introduction The plan for d
Page 29 and 30: 4 ......Introduction embedded in pr
Page 31 and 32: 6 ......Introduction oversampled to
Page 33 and 34: 8 ......Introduction Further inform
Page 35 and 36: 0 225 275 325 375 500 Source: U.S.
Page 37 and 38: About This Report This report is wr
Page 39 and 40: 14 ......Introduction
Page 41 and 42: 16 ......Section I are more challen
Page 43 and 44: NALS Percentages of Adults with Sel
Page 45 and 46: NALS Percentages of Adults Who Repo
Page 47 and 48: 22 ......Section I Twelve percent o
Page 49 and 50: NALS Average Literacy Proficiencies
Page 51 and 52: Percentage in Level Percentage in L
Page 53 and 54: Results by Parents’ Level of Educ
Page 55 and 56:
Results by Age 30 ......Section I T
Page 57 and 58:
NALS Average Years of Schooling, by
Page 59 and 60:
34 ......Section I When one compare
Page 61 and 62:
NALS PROSE Average Proficiency Aver
Page 63 and 64:
Age and Racial/Ethnic Differences 3
Page 65 and 66:
Country of Birth and Racial/Ethnic
Page 67 and 68:
42 ......Section I appears among Bl
Page 69 and 70:
Percentage in Level Percentage in L
Page 71 and 72:
Results by Region Results by Sex 46
Page 73 and 74:
NALS Percentages of Adults Born in
Page 75 and 76:
Summary 50 ......Section I overrepr
Page 77 and 78:
52 ......Section I A strong relatio
Page 79 and 80:
NALS Percentages of Adults Who Vote
Page 81 and 82:
Aspects of Newspaper Reading 56 ...
Page 83 and 84:
NALS Among Adults Who Read the News
Page 85 and 86:
60 ......Section II Individuals in
Page 87 and 88:
NALS Level 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 3 1
Page 89 and 90:
NALS Average Literacy Proficiencies
Page 91 and 92:
NALS Median Weekly Wages, by Litera
Page 93 and 94:
Summary 68 ......Section II The gre
Page 95 and 96:
70 ......Section III the content an
Page 97 and 98:
NALS 72 ......Section III The respo
Page 99 and 100:
74 ......Section III and the use of
Page 101 and 102:
76 ......Section III Prose Level 2
Page 103 and 104:
Page 105 and 106:
Page 107 and 108:
82 ......Section III Two other task
Page 109 and 110:
Document Literacy 84 ......Section
Page 111 and 112:
86 ...... Section III Here is a Soc
Page 113 and 114:
88 ......Section III A second quest
Page 115 and 116:
90 ......Section III 12345678901234
Page 117 and 118:
92 ......Section III Other tasks in
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94 ......Section III The NALS quant
Page 121 and 122:
THEATER TRIP 96 ......Section III 1
Page 123 and 124:
98 ......Section III 12345678901234
Page 125 and 126:
100 ......Section III Quantitative
Page 127 and 128:
NALS Average Probabilities of Succe
Page 129 and 130:
104 ......Section III classified as
Page 131 and 132:
106 ......Section III The failure t
Page 133 and 134:
Table 3.4: Percentages and average
Page 135 and 136:
110 ......Section III Table 3.5D: P
Page 137 and 138:
112 ......Section III Relatively hi
Page 139 and 140:
The sample designs for all 12 house
Page 141 and 142:
for 60 strategically constructed su
Page 143 and 144:
Finally, the survey collected infor
Page 145 and 146:
made to include as broad a range as
Page 147 and 148:
Administering the Data Collection I
Page 149 and 150:
124 ......Appendix A Response Rates
Page 151 and 152:
Data Entry 126 ......Appendix A The
Page 153 and 154:
NALS 128 ......Appendix A common it
Page 155 and 156:
A30endix 130 ......Appendix A .....
Page 157 and 158:
132 ......Appendix B College: 2 or
Page 159 and 160:
134......Appendix B Region Census d
Page 161 and 162:
Employment Status Respondents were
Page 163 and 164:
138 ......Appendix B Table 1.12A Av
Page 165 and 166:
140 ......Appendix B
Page 167 and 168:
Page 169 and 170:
144......Appendix B
Page 171 and 172:
Page 173 and 174:
Page 175 and 176:
Page 177 and 178:
Page 179 and 180:
Page 181 and 182:
156 ......Appendix B Census Region
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RACE/ETHNICITY TABLE 1.10 Average P
Page 185 and 186:
CENSUS REGION TABLE 1.11 Average Pr
Page 187 and 188:
DISABILITIES Physical, Mental, Heal
Page 189 and 190:
Page 191 and 192:
Page 193 and 194:
168......Appendix B
Page 195 and 196:
Page 197 and 198:
Page 199 and 200:
174 ......Participants Mr. David Ne
Page 201:
176 ......Participants Test Develop
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