Interviewer instructions
Third block of questions: only for persons 10 years old or older
The two questions that form this block should be asked only to persons who have ages of 10 years or more. If a person is found who is not this old, then you should cross out the whole block with diagonal crossed lines and go to the next person.
Question 10: Are you able to read and write
[Below the text is a form.]
Information here is gathered about illiteracy, that is to say, whether a person knows how to read and write.
It is understood that you should repeat the question to each and every one of the members of the household that you are enumerating.
Knowing how to read and write is, for census purposes, not only being able to do it with texts of a certain complexity (newspapers, books, magazines), but rather also when is concerns very simple texts in the first language of the interviewed person (be it Spanish, English, French or any other language). You know that persons exist who know how to read and write but only very simple texts, those needed to face common situations of everyday life.
Consequently, if the person tells you that the person being referred to only reads and writes what is needed, then you should mark with an X the circle that follows the word "Yes". Of course, you should do it also in all the rest of the cases of persons that read and write correctly in levels that go from the most simple to the most complex (writers, professionals, etc.) The response is "No" when you are told that the person about whom you are gathering information falls into one of the following possibilities:
a) Does not know how to read or write a simple paragraph in their first language.
b) Only knows how to read.
c) Only know how to sign or write their name.
d) At one time knew how to read and write, but in the moment of the interview they tell you that it was forgotten.
