PIAAC Literacy Proficiency Levels

PIAAC Literacy Proficiency Levels

Below Level 1

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Level 4

Level 5

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Level 4

326-375 Points

• Individuals at this level can read long/dense texts with multiple pages to complete tasks that involve accessing, understanding, evaluating, and reflecting on the text contents
• Successful task completion requires adults to produce knowledge-based inferences
• Texts/tasks at this level often deal with abstract/unfamiliar information, featuring lengthy content and large amounts of distracting information

Level 2

226-275 Points

• Individuals can access and understand information in longer passages with some distracting information
• Adults in this level can navigate within simple multi-page digital texts to access and identify target information from various parts of the text
• Texts can include multiple paragraphs over one or several pages, including simple websites

Below Level 1

0-175 Points

• Given a series of sentences increasing in complexity, individuals can determine if a sentence makes sense
• Most adults at this level are able to read short paragraphs and, at certain points in the text, are able to tell which word among two makes sense with the rest of the sentence
• Can access single words/numbers in short texts to answer short/explicit questions

Level 3

276-325 Points

• Individuals are able to construct meaning across larger paragraphs of text or perform multi-step operations to identify/formulate responses
• Adults at this level can identify, interpret, or evaluate one or more pieces of information, employing levels of inferencing
• Texts at this level can be dense, lengthy, and information can be distributed across multiple pages, arising from multiple sources

Level 1

176-225 Points

• Able to locate information on a text page, find a link from a website, and identify relevant text among multiple options when the information is explicitly cued
• Texts at level 1 may be continuous, noncontinuous, or mixed, and can be related to digital or print environments
• Tasks at level 1 involve simple questions providing some guidance as to what needs to be done, and a single processing step

Level 5

376-500 Points

• Assessment provides no direct information on what adults at level 5 can do
• From the most difficult tasks at level 4, adults above level 4 may be able to reason about the task itself, setting up reading goals based on complex/implicit requests
• Individuals can search for and integrate information across multiple dense texts containing distracting information, synthesize similar/contrasting points of view, and evaluate evidence-based arguments.