Sheida White|Jing Chen|Barbara Forsyth
Reading-Related Literacy Activities of American Adults: Time Spent, Task Types, and Cognitive Skills Used
National Center for Health Statistics|American Institutes for Research|University of Maryland, College Park
article presents data types duration readingrelated activities reported volunteer sample 400 adults demographically similar us adult population age 20 older terms race ethnicity education working status 2005 realworld tasks study diary study revealed adults spent average 45 hours day activities involve reading printed electronic texts relatively higher percentage occurred working nonworking days prose quantitative tasks common 98 94 minutes respectively hybrid document tasks 40 25 minutes respectively hybrid tasks constituted 15 total daily readingrelated literacy time novel finding hybrid tasks defined included previous studies readingrelated activities required application skills act use information function society achieve goals eg decide health insurance plan purchase terms texts adults spent 191 minutes day using prose texts 116 minutes using document texts largest portion readingrelated time prose texts spent periodicals journals newspapers electronic correspondence informational texts lists accounted fourth time spent activities involving reading document texts results used assessment development ensure assessment tasks reflect everyday literacy activities data may also benefit literacy practitioners creating materials reflect adults daily reading practices