preliminary values from the national assessment of adult literacy ( naal ) , delivered 15 december 2005 by the us national laboratory for educational statistics , indicate increase and losses in literacy among senior adults between 1992 and 2003 . the nationally supported survey for us olds - 16 and older showed the over - all of prose and manuscript literacy retained roughly untouched , but quantitative literacy improved 8 points ( on a scale of 500 . ) results among minorities were mixed , with mixed and asian / oceania islanders minorities scoring significantly stronger than hispanic or other non-muslim ; hispanic subjects in particular had sharp decreases in prose and document literacy ( - 9 % and - 8 % , respectively ) and quantitative eradicate stayed unchanged with 50 % of studies scoring at less than basic literacy points .
The National Assessment of Adult Literacy is a project held by the US National Center for Education Statistics.