Based on provincial guidelines (MTCU, 1999) for LBS programs in Ontario, literacy education can be designed to meet the needs of adults at IALS Level One (19 percent) and Level Two (28 percent). Added together, an astounding 47 percent of Ontarians, based on the IALS measures and interpretations, have literacy difficulties and need to address these if they are (according to the IALS) to participate fully in an increasingly knowledge–based economy. This statistic, although commonly used by policy makers and the literacy community, is beginning to undergo careful scrutiny (Sussman, 2003). One of the inherent problems with the IALS measures is that the overwhelming majority of people at Level Two don't feel they have any difficulties coping with day–to–day literacy demands. Adults at this level are therefore unlikely to participate in a literacy program. The discrepancy between perceived ability and prescribed deficit raises many issues according to Sticht (2001). Just what does IALS measure? Who determines and how does one determine a level of literacy that is good enough? Finally, can these measurements be useful to the people they are attempting to describe without doing harm by marginalizing them? Although these questions are outside the realm of this study, they need to be considered in order to question the assumptions of the IALS data.

The people most likely to participate in some sort of literacy education are those at Level One, but less than 10 percent actually do (OLC, 2003). This makes some sense considering that only 5% of people actually feel their reading is poor based on the IALS self-assessment measures (Sticht, 2001). Sussman (2003) did further statistical analysis of the IALS data, with a particular focus on the students at Level One, in an attempt to use demographic information in order to increase participation in literacy programs. She found that over half of the adults at Level One were over the age of 56; there was a fairly even distribution of Anglophone, Francophone and Allophone (first language is neither French or English) adults; and 81 percent never completed high school (more than half of these adults didn’t even start high school). Among her many recommendations, she suggested that programs address the particular literacy needs of older adults, and adults who have neither English or French as their mother tongue. She also recommended that future literacy statistics account for the number of adults with disabilities. She estimated that once older adults (54 percent) and Allophones (33 percent) are removed from the Level One category, the remainder (13 percent) are adults with some sort of learning, developmental, or physical disability.