The literacy training strategy of the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire has gained a great deal of recognition over the past 15 years. In Freire's method, the context of the learner's life is carefully studied to find the critical issues in the formulation of dialogue between teacher and learner. A basic vocabulary then is generated to insure power to change the learner's life. From this, instructional materials are generated to help the illiterate learners to read those items that will lead them to understand their world. This method would appear to be especially appropriate for three specific illiterate populations: (1) the traditional birth attendants who deliver most of the children around the world and who have a very powerful and unhealthy influence on third world health care; (2) the Saulteaux-Cree Indians in British Columbia, Canada, who have resisted the "paternalistic" education of the dominant Anglo culture in order to maintain their own culture; and (3) Hawaiian children who enter school with a cultural orientation toward listening respectfully and not asking questions, which is often misconstrued as disinterest or a learning disability. (HTH)