This digest focuses on measuring literacy in the United States. Various reports and surveys offer conflicting data on the extent of illiteracy, but it is generally agreed upon that the rates are alarmingly high. Information provided in this digest highlights the problem of defining literacy and the limitations of various approaches to measuring literacy, confusing illiteracy with non-English literacy, and confusing limited oral language proficiency in English with illiteracy. It is concluded that in relying on literacy data to develop informed educational policies for schools, communities, and the workplace, the three major approaches to measuring literacy provide information that is necessarily constrained by how literacy is conceptualized and by limitations in the allocation of resources for assessing literacy in languages other than English. Direct measures of literacy are preferable to the other approaches, but attention must be given to their ecological validity. (Adjunct ERIC Clearinghouse on Literacy Education) (VWL)