Report Summary

Detailed Findings

 Detailed Findings
 

 Literacy Impairment

Literacy figures provided are for people aged between 15 and 74 years.  This range has been pre-determined by the ABS in their data collection.  Child literacy figures are available, although it has been presumed that children under the age of 15 are not RPH Australia’s primary target audience.
 

Overall

The 1996 ABS Survey objectively assess three types of literacy:[1]

Prose literacy
Prose literacy is the ability to understand and use information from various kinds of prose texts, including texts from newspapers, magazines and brochures.

Document literacy
Document literacy is the ability to locate and use information contained in materials such as tables, schedules, charts, graphs and maps.

Quantitative literacy
Quantitative literacy is the ability to perform arithmetic operations using numbers contained in printed texts or documents.  This type of literacy clearly has a strong element of numeracy.  However, because quantitative literacy relates to the ability to extract and use numbers from printed texts and documents, for the purposes of the Survey of Aspects of Literacy and this publication, it is referred to as a type of literacy.

In addition, the Survey determined five skill levels of literacy:

Level 1
People at this level have very poor skills, and could be expected to experience considerable difficulties in using many of the printed materials that may be encountered in daily life.  Some people at this level display the ability to locate a single piece of information in a relatively short piece of text, to enter a piece of information onto a document, or to perform simple arithmetic operations using numbers provided.  However, Level 1 also includes those who could not successfully complete such tasks.

Level 2
People at this level could be expected to experience some difficulties in using many of the printed materials encountered in daily life.  While they would be able to use some printed material, this would generally be relatively simple, short and clearly structured, or require simple arithmetic operations to be performed on numbers that are easily determined from the source text.

Level 3
This level represents the ability to cope with a varied range of material found in daily life and at work.  People at this level would not be able to use all printed material with a high level of proficiency, but they would demonstrate the ability to use longer, more complex printed material.  They would be able to take conditional information into account, to make inferences, to compare and contrast information, and to extract numbers embedded in complex displays and perform more varied arithmetic operations.

Level 4
People at this level have good literacy skills, and display the ability to use higher order skills associated with matching and integration of information, with making higher order inferences and with performing arithmetic operations where either the quantities or the operation to be performed are not easily determined.

Level 5
People at this level have very good literacy skills, and can make high-level inferences, use complex displays of information, process conditional information and perform multiple operations sequentially.

After consultation with the ABS, it has been determined that those who possess a skill of Level 1, Prose Literacy would experience considerable difficulty in reading the newspaper daily and therefore have a print disability.  A total of 19.7% of the Australian population aged between 15 and 74 years in 1996 or 2,607,400 people are considered to have a print disability through a literacy impairment.

However, the figure of 19.7% only illustrates illiteracy amongst those aged 15 to 74 years.  This figure as a proportion of the entire population of any age, is
14.6%.

Table 4: Number and Proportion at Each Skill Level

	Prose Scale		Document Scale		Quantitative Scale
Skill Level	‘000	%	‘000	%	‘000	%
Level 1	2,607.4	19.7	2,580.3	19.5	2,531.8	19.2
Level 2	3,631.9	27.5	3,738.3	28.3	3,590.8	27.2
Level 3	4,668.9	35.3	4,774.2	36.1	4,764.0	36
Level 4	2,052.7	15.5	1,880.8	14.2	2,011.9	15.2
Level 5	259.9	2	247.2	1.9	322.3	2.4
Total	13,200.8	100	200.8	100	13,200.8	100

People classified as illiterate according to the above ratings of Level 1, Prose Literacy tended to:

• have a lower education attainment;
• be in the older demographic of 65-74;
• be male; and
• be indigenous.
   

State Profile

 The ABS statistics quoted above did not contain statistics disaggregated by State and Territory.
 

Specific Literacy Impairment Type

The most reliable literacy statistics available are quoted above.  As these statistics are an overall measure it would risk extreme duplication of figures (see Limitations of Research Approach, page 6) to profile specific literacy impairment types, such as immigrants unable to read English.  However, the immigrant potential audience is significant, as 14% of the Australian population speak English as a second language.[2] 

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This page was last modified on Tuesday, 27 September, 2005