Functionally illiterate people read at the fourth-grade level or below. Marginally literate people read at the fifth-through eighth-grade levels. Functionally literate people read at the ninth-grade level or above. This is the literate continuum as it now exists. However, technological developments are having the effect of shifting these levels us the continuum. As a result, what constitutes functional or marginal literacy now will have to be redefined periodically.