Especially targeted toward the research community, this webcast session highlighted the new types of data, technical resources, and reports planned for the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL). NAAL Project Officer, Sheida White, shared information about the assessment with participants and received questions, comments, and feedback on possible analyses during the webcast.

2003 NAAL Overview Webcast Evaluation Form (Rich text document)

Presenters: Sheida White, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Andrew Kolstad, NCES

Agenda of Webcast:

• Main National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) - An Overview
• New Features of NAAL
• Fluency Addition to the NAAL, Adult Literacy Supplemental Assessment, and Health Literacy
• NAAL Secondary Analysis

Transcript (Word format)

Questions regarding NAAL can be addressed to Sheida White at sheida.white@ed.gov or by visiting the NAAL website.

Sponsored by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), NAAL assesses the literacy skills of a nationally representative sample of American adults. Data are currently being collected for the main national sample, several state-level samples, and a prison sample. The 2003 NAAL is the first indication of the nation’s literacy since the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS). It also offers a number of new features and instruments, including:

• the enhanced NAAL Background Questionnaire, which provides data on factors relating to new economic and technological developments, as well as more extensive data on the back-ground of low-performing adults, health-related activities of adults, and literacy-related activities of parents and their children
• the Adult Literacy Supplemental Assessment (ALSA), which uses familiar, contextualized, and tangible materials to assess the ability of the least-literate adults to decode and recognize words as well as comprehend simple prose and documents
• the Fluency Addition to NAAL (FAN), which has adults read word lists and passages aloud in order to assess their ability to decode and recognize words and to read with fluency
• the Health Literacy component (based on health-related questions in both the assessment and the background questionnaire), which assesses the ability of adults to apply literacy skills to understand health-related information and forms

This special webcast presentation of the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy Overview
is sponsored by The National Institute for Literacy (NIFL).

More about the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy and links to other NAAL Webcasts.