CCL Home > Topic > Literacy
Prose literacy is one of several categories used to measure literacy. Others include document literacy (the skills needed to understand information in various formats such as charts, graphs, forms and maps), and numeracy (or quantitative literacy), the ability to apply mathematical skills to printed materials—like calculating a tip at a restaurant.
According to Statistics Canada, prose literacy is:
“The knowledge and skills needed to understand and use information from texts including editorials, news stories, brochures and instruction manuals.”
Prose literacy is an essential part of what many people consider “basic literacy,” and as such it is instrumental to developing a more sophisticated set of literacy skills.
Most Canadians understand the role that literacy plays in our social and economic prosperity; after all, we live in one of the most highly educated populations in the world.
However, as this prose literacy map of Canada shows, we may not be as literate as we think. According to the 2003 International Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (IALSS), 48 percent of adult Canadians (those 16 and over) had low levels of prose literacy—with some provinces having more than 50 percent. (see Table 1).
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) defines five levels of literacy; Level 1 being the lowest, Level 5 being highest. A Level 2 on the prose literacy scale denotes someone who is able to deal with simple, straightforward material, but “their poor literacy makes it hard to conquer challenges such as learning new job skills.”
Adults who fall into this category have the skills to get by on a day-to-day basis, but are likely unprepared for the challenges posed by a rapidly changing society which demands a greater understating of technology. With nearly half of adults in Canada having low prose literacy levels, CCL believes this should be a cause for concern.
This interactive map provides an in-depth look at more than 52,000 prose-literacy profiles across Canada.* These profiles were created by combining demographic information from the 2006 Census with prose literacy scores from the 2003 IALLSS, which was conducted by Statistics Canada and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The result is an innovative look at the prose literacy landscape across Canada’s cities, towns, communities and neighbourhoods. In the map prose literacy is represented in two ways; 1) by average adult prose literacy scores (on a scale of 0 – 500), or 2) by regions of lower literacy. The latter depicts the proportion of the population that scored at the OECD’s prose-literacy Level 2 or below. For a description of what these levels mean, see the “Some definitions” section below.
* Due to data limitations, off-reserve Native populations and certain parts of Northern Canada are not represented on the map.
Using the map l Canada l Provinces l Economic regions l British Columbia l Prairies l Ontario l Quebec l Atlantic region l North
To view this interactive map, you will need to install the free Flash Player onto your computer. If you do not have the Flash player on your computer, the prose literacy map is also available as a series of downloadable PDFs.
If you do not have the Flash Player on your computer, the prose literacy map is also available as a series of downloadable PDFs.
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Tabbed cities The cities that have a tab on the map (top right) are considered major cities in Canada, as defined by Statistics Canada, including capitals. These tabbed cities use boundaries defined by the municipalities themselves. The cities often comprise a number of communities, so the only way to get a scorecard for the city (e.g. Ottawa) is to click on the city while viewing the province tab.
Economic regions An economic region (ER) is a grouping of complete census divisions (CDs) created as a standard geographic unit for analysis of regional economic activity.
Literacy levels The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) defines the following five levels of literacy:
Prose literacy data at the community levels The data for the local area maps is from the 2003 International Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (IALSS) conducted by Statistics Canada and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the 2006 Canadian Census. The maps were produced using estimates generated by DataAngel Policy Research Incorporated that used the relationships observed on the IALSS file between prose literacy and a range of demographic characteristics that are also available on the Census file. The technique estimates multiple scores on an outcome variable that represents all Canadian citizens aged 16 and over, based on the best available information for each individual, and then displays the resulting scores on provincial or local area maps.
The approach uses the 2006 Canadian census data to create a file for each province that includes a record for every individual in the province that completed the Census 2B long form, roughly 20% of the population aged 16 and over. An estimate of a person’s outcome (in this case their prose literacy score) for all people on the file is estimated using a regression-based multiple imputation technique. Multiple scores (25) are generated for each individual and subsequently grouped into the IALSS proficiency levels. A separate regression is performed to account for local variation in the relationships. The imputations control for age group, gender, educational attainment, immigrant status, aboriginal status, and mother tongue. The imputation process faithfully reproduces the distributions of scores and proportions at each proficiency level at the Census Sub-Division and higher levels within this matrix of variables. The principle source of error in the estimates is associated with the fact that the variables used in the imputation do not account for all of the variation in proficiency observed at the individual level. These errors do not have a material impact on most uses of the data as the aggregation of scores into proficiency levels and of individuals into groups circumvents the problem.
Please contact CCL for more detailed information on the methodology.