In this first Danish study of adult reading skills, 1124 adults betwee
n 18 and 67 years of age participated in an interview about reading ha
bits and skills, and 445 were tested individually at home using six co
mmon texts. Great care was taken to ascertain that subjects were repre
sentative of the whole adult population and that the texts covered mos
t types of everyday reading. Three percent of the participants were fo
und to have severe functional reading difficulties and a further 9 per
cent to have moderate difficulties. Regression analyses found several
unique predictors of reading difficulties: age (adults over 45 years r
eading more poorly than younger adults), limited basic education, no v
ocational training nor higher education, and a small amount of reading
needed at work. The rate of poor readers was about four times higher
among persons with low income than among others. Men and women read eq
ually well although men tended to rate themselves lower as readers tha
n women did. Methodological issues and some educational implications a
re discussed.