To be literate means to be able to fulfil one's own goals as a family and community member, citizen, worker, and member of churches, clubs and other organizations you choose. This means being able to get information and use it to improve your life, being able to use reading and writing to do the things you decide to do, and being able to use literacy as a tool to solve problems you face in everyday life. Adult learners view literacy as increasing their independence and personal power to act on the world. It means a level of reading and writing at which they can communicate with the competence they define as necessary to deal with situations and opportunities within their environment. Literacy is a matter not of honing skills but of increasing confidence, familiarity and understanding, all consequences of meaningful use.
Literacy extends far beyond the acquisition of specified skills.
Students cannot hope to participate in any meaningful way in any social or democratic process without the ability to express themselves, to comprehend and respond critically to issues that are presented. Our job as instructors is to provide an enabling environment that can nurture those communication skills. This is a broad definition of literacy which extends far beyond the technical ability to read and write. This was a survey of functional reading, writing and numeracy skills of Canada's adult population. It was conducted through in-home interviews with a representative sample of 9,500 people between the ages of 16 to 69, and was limited to English and French.