The use of grade level to assess literacy skills, whether of children or adults, is based on the assumptions that schooling provided the necessary literacy skills and that these skills, once obtained, are retained. "It is clear that such distinctions [based on grade level] are not accurate and...provide little insight into the actual abilities and the educational needs of adults" (Verhoeven, 1994, p. 5).

Basic literacy (however "basic" is understood) and functional literacy are examples of autonomous definitions of literacy that have been measured by quantitative means. It is not surprising that business and government leaders were interested in comparing adult literacy levels between countries as a result of increased globalization and competition in the marketplace. The limitations of census data and school-based tests led to the development of a more sophisticated measure of adult literacy skill levels, a measure that first provided by the International Adult Literacy Survey (1995).

The International Adult Literacy Survey

In 1994, Statistics Canada and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development undertook the IALS (1995), a major quantitative study that was the first international comparison of adult literacy skills. The IALS provided a quantitative benchmark of adult literacy skills in seven industrialised countries: Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. An additional fourteen countries have since participated in the survey (Literacy Skills for the Knowledge Society, 1997). This multi-country survey of adult literacy was the first cross-cultural, multi-language documentation of adult literacy skills in industrialized countries. The IALS defined literacy as "the ability to use printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one's goals, and to develop one's knowledge and potential" (p. 14).

The IALS (1995) used test items were drawn from everyday life such as maps, printed articles, schedules, and documents a variety of literacy tasks. Test items were divided into five skill levels based on degree of complexity. At Level 1, respondents had to locate information based on a literal match; Level 2 required respondents to find one or more pieces of information that contained distractors; at Level 3 tasks had to make low level inferences based on information contained in more lengthy or complex text. According to the survey results, over 40% of adult Canadians functioned at Levels 1 although Level 3 was considered minimal adequacy for contemporary society. Levels 4 and 5 required more lengthy and dense text and more complex inferences (pp. 27-29).