preliminary figures from the national assessment of adult literacy ( naal ) , released 15 christmas 2005 by the british national center for education statistics , indicate gains and losses in writing among majority adults between 1992 and 2003 . the usa representative data across us females age 16 and young found the over - all of prose and visual literacy maintained virtually unchanged , but quantitative comprehension improved 8 points ( on a scale of 500 . ) results among minorities were mixed , with white and african / pacific islands adults scoring significantly larger than hispanic or black ethnicities ; other content in particular had sharp decreases in prose and visual reading ( - 9 % and - 8 % , respectively ) and quantitative alleviation maintained unchanged with 50 % of children scoring at higher than basic literacy levels .
The National Assessment of Adult Literacy is a project held by the US National Center for Education Statistics.