比特派钱包安卓版|literacy

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2024-03-13 03:42:55

Literacy | Definition, History, & Facts | Britannica

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Literacy: what you need to know

racy: what you need to know Skip to main content UNESCOSecondary menu Press Corner Data Center Explore UNESCO Explore UNESCO UNESCO go to www.unesco.org Search all UNESCO Close News & Events Calendar of events Statutory Meetings Governing Bodies Delegates Meetings Cultural Events at Headquarters UNESCO commemorations Articles News Stories Press Releases Who we are About us UNESCO in Brief Our vision for peace History of UNESCO Key Challenges Key Figures Key achievements UNESCO House - Visit us Governance Member States Portal General Conference Executive Board Director-General Strategic Management Board Office of International Standards and Legal Affairs Legal & Basic Texts Accountability Core data portal Budget & Strategy Internal Oversight Service Reform / Strategic transformation Funding needs and Data Financial regulations Access to Information Networks Field Offices NGOs and Foundations Associated Schools Unitwin UNESCO Goodwill Ambassadors Institutes and Centres Engage Spread the Word Donate Become a partner Careers at UNESCO Subscribe to our Newsletter What we do Our expertise Education Natural Sciences Ocean Science Social and Human Sciences Culture Communication and Information Our Impact Norms & Standards Ideas & Data Take Action Publications and Global Reports Key Challenges Futures of Education Spirit of Mosul Ethics of A.I Biodiversity All key challenges Global Priorities Gender Equality Priority Africa Where we work UNESCO lists and designations Creative Cities Biosphere Reserves Memory of the World Register Intangible Cultural Heritage UNESCO Global Geoparks World Heritage Prizes UNESCO in the World Member States Field Offices Networks For Member States Governance Member States Portal Executive Board General Conference Strategic Advisory Board Calendar of events Statutory Meetings Governing Bodies Delegates Meetings Cultural Events at Headquarters UNESCO commemorations Latest activities News Credentials Farewells Resources Basic texts Member States list Azure Notes Extranet Directories National Commissions Permanent Delegations Core Data Portal Resources Documents UNESDOC - Digital library Art Collection Multimedia archives Archives UNESCO Courier Official Photo Gallery Basic Texts Databases and Statistics Core data portal More data Observatory of killed Journalists UNESCO Institute for Statistics World Inequality Database on Education UNESCO Classroom UNESCO CampusAll UNESCO websites Biennale of LuandaPan-African Forum for the Culture of Peace Core Data PortalPublic access to information is a key component of UNESCO's commitment to transparency and its accountability. 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Find the latest ideas, publications and reports.Laboratory of Ideas Publications Publications Global Reports Global Reports The UNESCO Courier The UNESCO Courier Digital Library Digital Library Audiovisual Discover our audiovisual content, listen to our experts, and the great voices invited to UNESCO throughout history. UNESCO Studio UNESCO Studio Podcast Podcast Experts Experts Special Guests Special Guests Get InvolvedThere are many ways to take action with UNESCO - everyone can make a difference. Join us and leave your mark !SubscribeDonate Become a partner Become a partner Join UNESCO Join UNESCO Webinars & Open Courses Webinars & Open Courses Fellowships Fellowships SearchShareforward Search Quick links:UNESCO action in UkraineWorld Heritage Breadcrumb Literacy © UN Photo/Kibae Park Literacy What you need to know about literacyLast update:31 January 2024SummaryWhat is the global situation in relation to literacy?How does UNESCO define literacy? What are the effects of literacy?How does UNESCO work to promote literacy?What is digital literacy and why is it important?How is UNESCO helping advance girls' and women's literacy?How has youth and adult literacy been impacted in times of COVID-19? What is the purpose of the Literacy Prize and Literacy Day?What is the global situation in relation to literacy?Great progress has been made in literacy with most recent data (UNESCO Institute for Statistics) showing that more than 86 per cent of the world’s population know how to read and write compared to 68 per cent in 1979. Despite this, worldwide at least 763 million adults still cannot read and write, two thirds of them women, and 250 million children are failing to acquire basic literacy skills. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused the worst disruption to education in a century, 617 million children and teenagers had not reached minimum reading levels. How does UNESCO define literacy?Acquiring literacy is not a one-off act. Beyond its conventional concept as a set of reading, writing and counting skills, literacy is now understood as a means of identification, understanding, interpretation, creation, and communication in an increasingly digital, text-mediated, information-rich and fast-changing world. Literacy is a continuum of learning and proficiency in reading, writing and using numbers throughout life and is part of a larger set of skills, which include digital skills, media literacy, education for sustainable development and global citizenship as well as job-specific skills. Literacy skills themselves are expanding and evolving as people engage more and more with information and learning through digital technology. What are the effects of literacy?Literacy empowers and liberates people. Beyond its importance as part of the right to education, literacy improves lives by expanding capabilities which in turn reduces poverty, increases participation in the labour market and has positive effects on health and sustainable development. Women empowered by literacy have a positive ripple effect on all aspects of development. They have greater life choices for themselves and an immediate impact on the health and education of their families, and in particular, the education of girl children. How does UNESCO work to promote literacy?UNESCO works through its global network, field offices and institutes and with its Member States and partners to advance literacy in the framework of lifelong learning, and address the literacy target 4.6 in SDG4 and the Education 2030 Framework for Action. Its Strategy for Youth and Adult Literacy (2020-2025) pays special attention to the member countries of the Global Alliance for Literacy which targets 20 countries with an adult literacy rate below 50 per cent and the E9 countries, of which 17 are in Africa. The focus is on promoting literacy in formal and non-formal settings with four priority areas: strengthening national strategies and policy development on literacy; addressing the needs of disadvantaged groups, particularly women and girls; using digital technologies to expand and improve learning outcomes; and monitoring progress and assessing literacy skills. UNESCO also promotes adult learning and education through its Institute for Lifelong Learning, including the implementation of the 2015 Recommendation on Adult Learning and Education and its monitoring through the Global Report on Adult Learning and Education. What is digital literacy and why is it important?UNESCO defines digital literacy as the ability to access, manage, understand, integrate, communicate, evaluate and create information safely and appropriately through digital technologies for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship. It includes skills such as computer literacy, ICT literacy, information literacy and media literacy which aim to empower people, and in particular youth, to adopt a critical mindset when engaging with information and digital technologies, and to build their resilience in the face of disinformation, hate speech and violent extremism.How is UNESCO helping advance girls' and women's literacy?UNESCO’s Global Partnership for Women and Girls Education, launched in 2011, emphasizes quality education for girls and women at the secondary level and in the area of literacy; its Literacy Initiative for Empowerment (LIFE) project (2005–15) targeted women; and UNESCO’s international literacy prizes regularly highlight the life-changing power of meeting women’s and girls’ needs for literacy in specific contexts. Literacy acquisition often brings with it positive change in relation to harmful traditional practices, forms of marginalization and deprivation. Girls’ and women’s literacy seen as lifelong learning is integral to achieving the aims of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. How has youth and adult literacy been impacted in times of COVID-19?Since the start of the pandemic, several surveys have been conducted but very little is still known about the effect on youth and adult literacy of massive disruptions to learning, growing inequalities and projected increases in school dropouts. To fill this gap UNESCO will conduct a global survey “Learning from the COVID-19 crisis to write the future: National policies and programmes for youth and adult literacy” collecting information from countries worldwide regarding the situation and policy and programme responses. Its results will help UNESCO, countries and other partners respond better to the recovery phase and advance progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 on education and its target 4.6 on youth and adult literacy. In addition, for International Literacy Day 2020, UNESCO prepared a background paper on the impact of the crisis on youth and adult literacy.What is the purpose of the Literacy Prize and Literacy Day?Every year since 1967, UNESCO celebrates International Literacy Day and rewards outstanding and innovative programmes that promote literacy through the International Literacy Prizes. Every year on 8 September UNESCO comes together for the annual celebration with Field Offices, institutes, NGOs, teachers, learners and partners to remind the world of the importance of literacy as a matter of dignity and human rights. The event emphasizes the power of literacy and creates awareness to advance the global agenda towards a more literate and sustainable society. The International Literacy Prizes reward excellence and innovation in the field of literacy and, so far, over 506 projects and programmes undertaken by governments, non-governmental organizations and individuals around the world have been recognized. Following an annual call for submissions, an International Jury of experts appointed by UNESCO's Director-General recommends potential prizewinning programmes. Candidates are submitted by Member States or by international non-governmental organizations in official partnership with UNESCO.Share Copied to clipboard Related itemsEducationLiteracyLifelong education UNESCO Latest News Take Action Ideas & Data Our Impact Our expertise Core Data Portal Subscribe to our Newsletter Terms of use UNESCO Name & Logo FAQ Report fraud, abuse, misconduct Scam alert Policies Protection of human rights (Procedure 104) Privacy Notice Access to Information Environmental and Social Policies Follow usFacebookThreadsTwitterYouTubeTikTokInstagramWhatsappLinkedIn

Chapter 1. What is Literacy? Multiple Perspectives on Literacy – Methods of Teaching Early Literacy

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AcknowledgmentsAbout the BookIntroduction Chapter 1. What is Literacy? Multiple Perspectives on LiteracyConstance BeecherChapter 2. Foundations of Early LiteracySohyun MeachamChapter 3. Phonological AwarenessNandita GurjarChapter 4. Phonics: Breaking the Code to WordsConstance Beecher and Emily HaydenChapter 5. Supporting Literacy Learning in the Early Childhood ClassroomSohyun MeachamChapter 6. Vocabulary Constance BeecherChapter 7. Fluency and ComprehensionNandita GurjarChapter 8. WritingNandita Gurjar and Sohyun MeachamChapter 9. Literacy Instruction for Diverse LearnersConstance Beecher; Sohyun Meacham; and Nandita GurjarChapter 10. Reading and Writing Across Content Areas – Disciplinary LiteracyEmily Hayden and Constance Beecher About the AuthorsReview Statement

Methods of Teaching Early Literacy

Chapter 1. What is Literacy? Multiple Perspectives on Literacy

Constance Beecher

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” – Frederick Douglass

Download Tar Beach – Faith Ringgold Video Transcript [DOC]

Keywords: literacy, digital literacy, critical literacy, community-based literacies

Definitions of literacy from multiple perspectives

Literacy is the cornerstone of education by any definition. Literacy refers to the ability of people to read and write (UNESCO, 2017). Reading and writing in turn are about encoding and decoding information between written symbols and sound (Resnick, 1983; Tyner, 1998). More specifically, literacy is the ability to understand the relationship between sounds and written words such that one may read, say, and understand them (UNESCO, 2004; Vlieghe, 2015). About 67 percent of children nationwide, and more than 80 percent of those from families with low incomes, are not proficient readers by the end of third grade (The Nation Assessment for Educational Progress; NAEP 2022). Children who are not reading on grade level by third grade are 4 times more likely to drop out of school than their peers who are reading on grade level. A large body of research clearly demonstrates that Americans with fewer years of education have poorer health and shorter lives. In fact, since the 1990s, life expectancy has fallen for people without a high school education. Completing more years of education creates better access to health insurance, medical care, and the resources for living a healthier life (Saha, 2006). Americans with less education face higher rates of illness, higher rates of disability, and shorter life expectancies. In the U.S., 25-year-olds without a high school diploma can expect to die 9 years sooner than college graduates. For example, by 2011, the prevalence of diabetes had reached 15% for adults without a high -school education, compared with 7% for college graduates (Zimmerman et al., 2018).

Thus, literacy is a goal of utmost importance to society. But what does it mean to be literate, or to be able to read? What counts as literacy?

Learning Objectives

Describe two or more definitions of literacy and the differences between them.

Define digital and critical literacy.

Distinguish between digital literacy, critical literacy, and community-based literacies.

Explain multiple perspectives on literacy.

Here are some definitions to consider:

“Literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in their community and wider society.” – United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

“The ability to understand, use, and respond appropriately to written texts.” – National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), citing the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC)

“An individual’s ability to read, write, and speak in English, compute, and solve problems, at levels of proficiency necessary to function on the job, in the family of the individual, and in society.” – Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), Section 203

“The ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in their community and wider society.” – Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), as cited by the American Library Association’s Committee on Literacy

“Using printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential.” – Kutner, Greenberg, Jin, Boyle, Hsu, & Dunleavy (2007). Literacy in Everyday Life: Results from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NCES 2007-480)

Reflection Questions

Which one of these above definitions resonates with you? Why?

New literacy practices as meaning-making practices

In the 21st century, literacy increasingly includes understanding the roles of digital media and technology in literacy. In 1996, the New London Group coined the term “multiliteracies” or “new literacies” to describe a modern view of literacy that reflected multiple communication forms and contexts of cultural and linguistic diversity within a globalized society. They defined multiliteracies as a combination of multiple ways of communicating and making meaning, including such modes as visual, audio, spatial, behavioral, and gestural (New London Group, 1996). Most of the text’s students come across today are digital (like this textbook!). Instead of books and magazines, students are reading blogs and text messages.

For a short video on the importance of digital literacy, watch The New Media Literacies.

The National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE, 2019) makes it clear that our definitions of literacy must continue to evolve and grow (NCTE definition of digital literacy).

“Literacy has always been a collection of communicative and sociocultural practices shared among communities. As society and technology change, so does literacy. The world demands that a literate person possess and intentionally apply a wide range of skills, competencies, and dispositions. These literacies are interconnected, dynamic, and malleable. As in the past, they are inextricably linked with histories, narratives, life possibilities, and social trajectories of all individuals and groups. Active, successful participants in a global society must be able to:

participate effectively and critically in a networked world.

explore and engage critically and thoughtfully across a wide variety of inclusive texts and tools/modalities.

consume, curate, and create actively across contexts.

advocate for equitable access to and accessibility of texts, tools, and information.

build and sustain intentional global and cross-cultural connections and relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and strengthen independent thought.

promote culturally sustaining communication and recognize the bias and privilege present in the interactions.

examine the rights, responsibilities, and ethical implications of the use and creation of information.

determine how and to what extent texts and tools amplify one’s own and others’ narratives as well as counterproductive narratives.

recognize and honor the multilingual literacy identities and culture experiences individuals bring to learning environments, and provide opportunities to promote, amplify, and encourage these variations of language (e.g., dialect, jargon, and register).”

Socio-cultural context refers to the idea that language does not exist in isolation and is closely linked to the culture and society in which it is used and taught. Activities that can raise awareness of socio-cultural context include using stories from different countries, analyzing newspaper headlines, and looking at slang and idiomatic language.

Learning Activities

In other words, literacy is not just the ability to read and write. It is also being able to effectively use digital technology to find and analyze information. Students who are digitally literate know how to do research, find reliable sources, and make judgments about what they read online and in print. Next, we will learn more about digital literacy.

Important terms

Malleable: can be changed.

Culturally sustaining: the pedagogical preservation of the cultural and linguistic competence of young people pertaining to their communities of origin while simultaneously affording dominant-culture competence.

Bias: a tendency to believe that some people, ideas, etc., are better than others, usually resulting in unfair treatment.

Privilege: a right or benefit that is given to some people and not to others.

Unproductive narrative: negative commonly held beliefs such as “all students from low-income backgrounds will struggle in school.” (Narratives are phrases or ideas that are repeated over and over and become “shared narratives.” You can spot them in common expressions and stories that almost everyone knows and holds as ingrained values or beliefs.)

Literacy in the digital age

The Iowa Core recognizes that today, literacy includes technology. The goal for students who graduate from the public education system in Iowa is:

“Each Iowa student will be empowered with the technological knowledge and skills to learn effectively and live productively. This vision, developed by the Iowa Core 21st Century Skills Committee, reflects the fact that Iowans in the 21st century live in a global environment marked by a high use of technology, giving citizens and workers the ability to collaborate and make individual contributions as never before. Iowa’s students live in a media-suffused environment, marked by access to an abundance of information and rapidly changing technological tools useful for critical thinking and problem-solving processes. Therefore, technological literacy supports preparation of students as global citizens capable of self-directed learning in preparation for an ever-changing world” (Iowa Core Standards 21st Century Skills, n.d.).

NOTE: The essential concepts and skills of technology literacy are taken from the International Society for Technology in Education’s National Educational Technology Standards for Students: Grades K-2 | Technology Literacy Standards

The following section is an adaptation of Digital Literacies and the Skills of the Digital Age by Cathy L. Green, used under a CC BY 4.0. license.

Literacy in any context is defined as the ability “ to access, manage, integrate, evaluate, and create information in order to function in a knowledge society” (ICT Literacy Panel, 2002). “ When we teach only for facts (specifics)… rather than for how to go beyond facts, we teach students how to get out of date ” (Sternberg, 2008). This statement is particularly significant when applied to technology literacy. The Iowa essential concepts for technology literacy reflect broad, universal processes and skills.

Unlike the previous generations, learning in the digital age is marked using rapidly evolving technology, a deluge of information, and a highly networked global community (Dede, 2010). In such a dynamic environment, learners need skills beyond the basic cognitive ability to consume and process language. To understand the characteristics of the digital age, and what this means for how people learn in this new and changing landscape, one may turn to the evolving discussion of literacy or, as one might say now, of digital literacy. The history of literacy contextualizes digital literacy and illustrates changes in literacy over time. By looking at literacy as an evolving historical phenomenon, we can glean the fundamental characteristics of the digital age. These characteristics in turn illuminate the skills needed to take advantage of digital environments. The following discussion is an overview of digital literacy, its essential components, and why it is important for learning in the digital age.

Literacy is often considered a skill or competency. Children and adults alike can spend years developing the appropriate skills for encoding and decoding information. Over the course of thousands of years, literacy has become much more common and widespread, with a global literacy rate ranging from 81% to 90% depending on age and gender (UNESCO, 2016). From a time when literacy was the domain of an elite few, it has grown to include huge swaths of the global population. There are several reasons for this, not the least of which are some of the advantages the written word can provide. Kaestle (1985) tells us that “literacy makes it possible to preserve information as a snapshot in time, allows for recording, tracking and remembering information, and sharing information more easily across distances among others” (p. 16). In short, literacy led “to the replacement of myth by history and the replacement of magic by skepticism and science.”

If literacy involves the skills of reading and writing, digital literacy requires the ability to extend those skills to effectively take advantage of the digital world (American Library Association [ALA], 2013). More general definitions express digital literacy as the ability to read and understand information from digital sources as well as to create information in various digital formats (Bawden, 2008; Gilster, 1997; Tyner, 1998; UNESCO, 2004). Developing digital skills allows digital learners to manage a vast array of rapidly changing information and is key to both learning and working in the evolving digital landscape (Dede, 2010; Koltay, 2011; Mohammadyari & Singh, 2015). As such, it is important for people to develop certain competencies specifically for handling digital content.

ALA Digital Literacy Framework

To fully understand the many digital literacies, we will look at the American Library Association (ALA) framework. The ALA framework is laid out in terms of basic functions with enough specificity to make it easy to understand and remember but broad enough to cover a wide range of skills. The ALA framework includes the following areas:

finding,

understanding,

evaluating,

creating, and

communicating (American Library Association, 2013).

Finding

Finding information in a digital environment represents a significant departure from the way human beings have searched for information for centuries. The learner must abandon older linear or sequential approaches to finding information such as reading a book, using a card catalog, index, or table of contents, and instead use more horizontal approaches like natural language searches, hypermedia text, keywords, search engines, online databases and so on (Dede, 2010; Eshet, 2002). The shift involves developing the ability to create meaningful search limits (SCONUL, 2016). Previously, finding the information would have meant simply looking up page numbers based on an index or sorting through a card catalog. Although finding information may depend to some degree on the search tool being used (library, internet search engine, online database, etc.) the search results also depend on how well a person is able to generate appropriate keywords and construct useful Boolean searches. Failure in these two areas could easily return too many results to be helpful, vague, or generic results, or potentially no useful results at all (Hangen, 2015).

Part of the challenge of finding information is the ability to manage the results. Because there is so much data, changing so quickly, in so many different formats, it can be challenging to organize and store them in such a way as to be useful. SCONUL (2016) talks about this as the ability to organize, store, manage, and cite digital resources, while the Educational Testing Service also specifically mentions the skills of accessing and managing information. Some ways to accomplish these tasks is using social bookmarking tools such as Diigo, clipping and organizing software such as Evernote and OneNote, and bibliographic software. Many sites, such as YouTube, allow individuals with an account to bookmark videos, as well as create channels or collections of videos for specific topics or uses. Other websites have similar features.

Understanding

Understanding in the context of digital literacy perhaps most closely resembles traditional literacy because it is the ability to read and interpret text (Jones-Kavalier & Flannigan, 2006). In the digital age, however, the ability to read and understand extends much further than text alone. For example, searches may return results with any combination of text, video, sound, and audio, as well as still and moving pictures. As the internet has evolved, a whole host of visual languages have also evolved, such as moving images, emoticons, icons, data visualizations, videos, and combinations of all the above. Lankshear & Knoble (2008) refer to these modes of communication as “post typographic textual practice.” Understanding the variety of modes of digital material may also be referred to as multimedia literacy (Jones-Kavalier & Flannigan, 2006), visual literacy (Tyner, 1998), or digital literacy (Buckingham, 2006).

Evaluating

Evaluating digital media requires competencies ranging from assessing the importance of a piece of information to determining its accuracy and source. Evaluating information is not new to the digital age, but the nature of digital information can make it more difficult to understand who the source of information is and whether it can be trusted (Jenkins, 2018). When there are abundant and rapidly changing data across heavily populated networks, anyone with access can generate information online. This results in the learner needing to make decisions about its authenticity, trustworthiness, relevance, and significance. Learning evaluative digital skills means learning to ask questions about who is writing the information, why they are writing it, and who the intended audience is (Buckingham, 2006). Developing critical thinking skills is part of the literacy of evaluating and assessing the suitability for use of a specific piece of information (SCONUL, 2016).

Creating

Creating in the digital world makes the production of knowledge and ideas in digital formats explicit. While writing is a critical component of traditional literacy, it is not the only creative tool in the digital toolbox. Other tools are available and include creative activities such as podcasting, making audio-visual presentations, building data visualizations, 3D printing, and writing blogs. Tools that haven’t been thought of before are constantly appearing. In short, a digitally literate individual will want to be able to use all formats in which digital information may be conveyed in the creation of a product. A key component of creating with digital tools is understanding what constitutes fair use and what is considered plagiarism. While this is not new to the digital age, it may be more challenging these days to find the line between copying and extending someone else’s work.

In part, the reason for the increased difficulty in discerning between plagiarism and new work is the “cut and paste culture” of the Internet, referred to as “reproduction literacy” (Eshet 2002, p.4), or appropriation in Jenkins’ New Media Literacies (Jenkins, 2018). The question is, what kind and how much change is required to avoid the accusation of plagiarism? This skill requires the ability to think critically, evaluate a work, and make appropriate decisions. There are tools and information to help understand and find those answers, such as the Creative Commons. Learning about such resources and how to use them is part of digital literacy.

Communicating

Communicating is the final category of digital skills in the ALA digital framework. The capacity to connect with individuals all over the world creates unique opportunities for learning and sharing information, for which developing digital communication skills is vital. Some of the skills required for communicating in the digital environment include digital citizenship, collaboration, and cultural awareness. This is not to say that one does not need to develop communication skills outside of the digital environment, but that the skills required for digital communication go beyond what is required in a non-digital environment. Most of us are adept at personal, face- to-face communication, but digital communication needs the ability to engage in asynchronous environments such as email, online forums, blogs, social media, and learning platforms where what is written may not be deleted and may be misinterpreted. Add that to an environment where people number in the millions and the opportunities for misunderstanding and cultural miscues are likely.

The communication category of digital literacies covers an extensive array of skills above and beyond what one might need for face-to-face interactions. It is comprised of competencies around ethical and moral behavior, responsible communication for engagement in social and civic activities (Adam Becker et al., 2017), an awareness of audience, and an ability to evaluate the potential impact of one’s online actions. It also includes skills for handling privacy and security in online environments. These activities fall into two main categories: digital citizenship and collaboration.

Digital citizenship refers to one’s ability to interact effectively in the digital world. Part of this skill is good manners, often referred to as “netiquette.” There is a level of context which is often missing in digital communication due to physical distance, lack of personal familiarity with the people online, and the sheer volume of the people who may encounter our words. People who know us well may understand exactly what we mean when we say something sarcastic or ironic, but people online do not know us, and vocal and facial cues are missing in most digital communication, making it more likely we will be misunderstood. Furthermore, we are more likely to misunderstand or be misunderstood if we are unaware of cultural differences. So, digital citizenship includes an awareness of who we are, what we intend to say, and how it might be perceived by other people we do not know (Buckingham, 2006). It is also a process of learning to communicate clearly in ways that help others understand what we mean.

Another key digital skill is collaboration, and it is essential for effective participation in digital projects via the Internet. The Internet allows people to engage with others they may never see in person and work towards common goals, be they social, civic, or business oriented. Creating a community and working together requires a degree of trust and familiarity that can be difficult to build when there is physical distance between the participants. Greater effort must be made to be inclusive , and to overcome perceived or actual distance and disconnectedness. So, while the potential of digital technology for connecting people is impressive, it is not automatic or effortless, and it requires new skills.

Learning Activities

Literacy narratives are stories about reading or composing a message in any form or context. They often include poignant memories that involve a personal experience with literacy. Digital literacy narratives can sometimes be categorized as ones that focus on how the writer came to understand the importance of technology in their life or pedagogy. More often, they are simply narratives that use a medium beyond the print-based essay to tell the story:

Create your own literacy narrative that tells of a significant experience you had with digital literacy. Use a multi-modal tool that includes audio and images or video. Share it with your classmates and discuss the most important ideas you notice in each other’s narratives.

Critical literacy

Literacy scholars recognize that although literacy is a cognitive skill, it is also a set of practices that communities and people participate in. Next, we turn to another perspective on literacy – critical literacy. “Critical” here is not meant as having a negative point of view, but rather using an analytic lens that detects power, privilege, and representation to understand different ways of looking at texts. For example, when groups or individuals stage a protest, do the media refer to them as “protesters” or “rioters?” What is the reason for choosing the label they do, and what are the consequences?

Learning Activities

Critical literacy does not have a set definition or typical history of use, but the following key tenets have been described in the literature, which will vary in their application based on the individual social context (Vasquez, 2019). Table 1 presents some key aspects of critical literacy, but this area of literacy research is growing and evolving rapidly, so this is not an exhaustive list.

Table 1. Key Aspects of Critical Literacy

Key aspect

Example

Reading includes the everyday texts students encounter in their lives, not just books assigned at school.

Students write down the messages that they see in public, take photographs of graffiti or signs, or collect candy wrappers to bring to class.

Diverse students’ knowledge (coming from the classroom and the children’s homes) (Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti, 2006) and multilingual/modal practices (Lau, 2012) should be used to enhance the curriculum.

Invite children to bring and share meaningful objects, stories, and language from home.

Students learn best when learning is authentic and connected to their lives.

Provide a wide variety of texts in the classroom to represent children from many different backgrounds.

Texts are never neutral but reflect the author’s social perspective. On the flip side, the way we read texts is not neutral either.

Maps are based on selections of what to include and exclude. Putting north at the top and Europe at the center implies that those regions are more important.

Critical literacy work focuses on social issues, including inequities of race, class, gender, and disability, and the ways in which we use language to form our understanding of these issues.

O’Brien (2001) asked children to analyze a catalogue promoting Mother’s Day. They discovered that the mothers in the photographs were all youthful (age), White (race), well-dressed (class), and able-bodied (disability).

Literacy practices should be transformative: Students should be empowered to investigate issues that impact them and then to engage in civic actions to solve problems.

Students take photographs of trash in their local park. They interview people in the neighborhood about the park conditions, and then they create a slideshow to present at a city-council meeting.

An important component of critical literacy is the adoption of culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogy. One definition comes from Dr. Django Paris (2012), who stated that Culturally Responsive-Sustaining (CR-S) education recognizes that cultural differences (including racial, ethnic, linguistic, gender, sexuality, and ability ones) should be treated as assets for teaching and learning. Culturally sustaining pedagogy requires teachers to support multilingualism and multiculturalism in their practice. That is, culturally sustaining pedagogy seeks to perpetuate and foster—to sustain—linguistic, literary, and cultural pluralism as part of the democratic project of schooling.

For more, see the Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Framework. The framework helps educators to think about how to create student-centered learning environments that uphold racial, linguistic, and cultural identities. It prepares students for rigorous independent learning, develops their abilities to connect across lines of difference, elevates historically marginalized voices, and empowers them as agents of social change. CR-S education explores the relationships between historical and contemporary conditions of inequality and the ideas that shape access, participation, and outcomes for learners.

Reflection Questions

What can you do to learn more about your students’ cultures?

How can you build and sustain relationships with your students?

How do the instructional materials you use affirm your students’ identities?

Community-based literacies

You may have noticed that communities are a big part of critical literacy – we understand that our environment and culture impact what we read and how we understand the world. Now think about the possible differences among three Iowa communities: a neighborhood in the middle of Des Moines, the rural community of New Hartford, and Coralville, a suburb of Iowa City:

“4th Street Downtown Des Moines” photo is by Dsmspence, CC BY SA 3.0.

“New Hartford Iowa Library” photo is by Jazzlisp, CC BY SA 4.0.

“City Center Squire” photo is by American007, CC BY SA 3.0.

Reflection Questions

What kind of signs might you see? How easy would it be to find and visit a library? Where can children access books? Is there a bookstore? Do the schools have large libraries?

You may not have thought about how living in a certain community might contribute to or take away from a child’s ability to learn to read. Dr. Susan Neuman (2001) did. She and her team investigated the differences between two neighborhoods regarding how much access to books and other reading materials children in those neighborhoods had. One middle-to-upper class neighborhood in Philadelphia had large bookstores, toy stores with educational materials, and well-resourced libraries. The other, a low-income neighborhood, had no bookstores or toy stores. There was a library, but it had fewer resources and served a larger number of patrons. In fact, the team found that even the signs on the businesses were harder to read, and there was less environmental printed word. Their findings showed that each child in the middle-class neighborhood had 13 books on average, while in the lower-class neighborhood there was one book per 300 children.

Dr. Neuman and her team (2019) recently revisited this question. This time, they looked at low-income neighborhoods – those where 60% or more of the people are living in poverty . They compared these to borderline neighborhoods – those with 20-40% in poverty – in three cities, Washington, D.C., Detroit, and Los Angeles. Again, they found significantly fewer books in the very low-income areas. The chart represents the preschool books available for sale in each neighborhood. Note that in the lower-income neighborhood of Washington D.C., there were no books for young children to be found at all!

Now watch this video from Campaign for Grade Level Reading. Access to books is one way that children can have new experiences, but it is not the only way!

Learning Activities

What is the “summer slide,” and how does it contribute to the differences in children’s reading abilities?

The importance of being literate and how to get there

“Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope” – Kofi Annan, former United Nations Secretary-General.

Kofi Annan, Special Envoy from the Joint United Nations, and Arab League to Syria, speaks to the press about the mission in Syria (July 11, 2012, photo by Jean-Marc Ferré, CC BY NC ND 2.0).

Our economy is enhanced when citizens have higher literacy levels. Effective literacy skills open the doors to more educational and employment opportunities so that people can lift themselves out of poverty and chronic underemployment. In our increasingly complex and rapidly changing technological world, it is essential that individuals continuously expand their knowledge and learn new skills to keep up with the pace of change. The goal of our public school system in the United States is to “ensure that all students graduate from high school with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in college, career, and life, regardless of where they live.” This is the basis of the Common Core Standards, developed by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center). These groups felt that education was too inconsistent across the different states, and today’s students are preparing to enter a world in which colleges and businesses are demanding more than ever before. To ensure that all students are ready for success after high school, the Common Core State Standards established clear universal guidelines for what every student should know and be able to do in math and English language arts from kindergarten through 12th grade: “The Common Core State Standards do not tell teachers how to teach, but they do help teachers figure out the knowledge and skills their students should have” (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2012).

Explore the Core!

Go to iowacore.gov and click on Literacy Standards. Spend some time looking at the K-3 standards. Notice how consistent they are across the grade levels. Each has specific requirements within the categories:

Reading Standards for Literature

Reading Standards for Informational Text

Reading Standards for Foundational Skills

Writing Standards

Speaking and Listening Standards

Language Standards

Some states follow the Common Core as written, and some states (like Iowa) have their own version. See more at www.corestandards.org

Learning Activities

Download the Iowa Core K-12 Literacy Manual. You will use it as a reference when you are creating lessons.

Next, explore the Subject Area pages and resources. What tools does the state provide to teachers to support their use of the Core?

Describe a resource you found on the website. How will you use this when you are a teacher?

Video Examples

Watch this video about the Iowa Literacy Core Standards:

Key Takeaways

Literacy is typically defined as the ability to ingest, understand, and communicate information.

Literacy has multiple definitions, each with a different point of focus.

“New literacies,” or multiliteracies, are a combination of multiple ways of communicating and making meaning, including visual, audio, spatial, behavioral, and gestural communication.

As online communication has become more prevalent, digital literacy has become more important for learners to engage with the wealth of information available online.

Critical literacy develops learners’ critical thinking by asking them to use an analytic lens that detects power, privilege, and representation to understand different ways of looking at information.

The Common Core State Standards were established to set clear, universal guidelines for what every student should know after completing high school.

Resources for teacher educators

Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education Framework [PDF]

Common Core State Standards

Iowa Core Instructional Resources in Literacy

References

Gonzalez, N., Moll, L. C., & Amanti, C. (Eds.). (2006). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms. New York, NY: Routledge.

Lau, S. M. C. (2012). Reconceptualizing critical literacy teaching in ESL classrooms. The Reading Teacher, 65, 325–329.

Literacy. (2018, March 19). Retrieved March 2, 2020, from https://en.unesco.org/themes/literacy

Neuman, S. B., & Celano, D. (2001). Access to print in low‐income and middle‐income communities: An ecological study of four neighborhoods. Reading Research Quarterly, 36(1), 8-26.

Neuman, S. B., & Moland, N. (2019). Book deserts: The consequences of income segregation on children’s access to print. Urban education, 54(1), 126-147.

New London Group (1996). A Pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60-92.

O’Brien, J. (2001). Children reading critically: A local history. In B. Comber & A. Simpson (Eds.), Negotiating critical literacies in classrooms (pp. 41–60). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Ordoñez-Jasis, R., & Ortiz, R. W. (2006). Reading their worlds: Working with diverse families to enhance children’s early literacy development. YC Young Children, 61(1), 42.

Saha S. (2006). Improving literacy as a means to reducing health disparities. J Gen Intern Med. 21(8):893-895. doi:10.1111/j.1525-1497.2006.00546.x

UNESCO. (2017). Literacy rates continue to rise from one generation to the next global literacy trends today. Retrieved from http://on.unesco.org/literacy-map.

Vasquez, V.M., Janks, H. & Comber, B. (2019). Critical Literacy as a Way of Being and Doing. Language Arts, 96(5), 300-311.

Vlieghe, J. (2015). Traditional and digital literacy. The literacy hypothesis, technologies of reading and writing, and the ‘grammatized’ body. Ethics and Education, 10(2), 209-226.

Zimmerman, E. B., Woolf, S. H., Blackburn, S. M., Kimmel, A. D., Barnes, A. J., & Bono, R. S. (2018). The case for considering education and health. Urban Education, 53(6), 744-773.U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences.

U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 2022 Reading Assessment.

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1Other definitions and uses of the term "literacy"

2Social and cultural elements

3Functional illiteracy

4History

Toggle History subsection

4.1Prehistoric and ancient literacy

4.1.1Origins of literacy

4.1.2Origins of the alphabet

4.2Classical and post-classical literacy

4.3Literacy and industrialization

5Modern literacy

Toggle Modern literacy subsection

5.1Spread of literacy since the mid-twentieth century

5.2Regional disparities

5.3Gender disparities

5.3.1Challenges of increasing female literacy

5.3.2Gender gap for boys in developed countries

5.4Socioeconomic impact

5.4.1Effects on literacy learning

5.5Health impacts

5.6Economic impacts

5.7Lifespan development and promotion efforts

5.8Literacy as a development indicator

5.9Measuring literacy

5.10Literacy as a human right

6Teaching literacy

Toggle Teaching literacy subsection

6.1Post-conflict settings

6.2Teaching migrant, immigrant, and non-native users

6.2.1Importance

7By continent

Toggle By continent subsection

7.1Europe

7.1.1United Kingdom

7.1.1.1England

7.1.1.2Wales

7.1.2Continental Europe

7.2North America

7.2.1Canada

7.2.1.1Colonialism (1600s–1762)

7.2.1.2From the British Conquest (1763) to Confederation (1867)

7.2.1.31868–1986

7.2.1.4Direct systematic measures of literacy in Canada, 1987–present

7.2.2Mexico

7.2.3United States

7.2.3.1Cultural and westernized literacy for Native Americans in the United States

7.2.3.2US public library efforts

7.2.3.2.1Dia!: Diversity in Action

7.2.3.2.2READ/Orange County

7.2.3.2.3BoulderReads!

7.2.3.2.4Hillsborough Literacy Council (HLC)

7.3South America

7.3.1Brazil

7.4Africa

7.4.1Algeria

7.4.2Burkina Faso

7.4.3Egypt

7.4.4Ethiopia

7.4.5Guinea

7.4.6Kenya

7.4.7Mali

7.4.8Mauritius

7.4.9Niger

7.4.10Senegal

7.4.11Somalia

7.4.12Sierra Leone

7.5Asia

7.5.1Afghanistan

7.5.2China

7.5.3India

7.5.4Iran

7.5.5Laos

7.5.6Pakistan

7.5.7Philippines

7.5.8Sri Lanka

7.6Oceania

7.6.1Australia

8See also

9Notes

10Citations

11References

12Further reading

13External links

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ability to read and write

For the article on reading, see Reading. For the article on writing, see Writing. For the academic journal, see Literacy (journal).

"Illiterate" redirects here. For the 2013 film, see Illiterate (film).

"Reading and writing" redirects here. For the journal, see Reading and Writing (journal).

This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. When this tag was added, its readable prose size was 14,000 words. Please consider splitting content into sub-articles, condensing it, or adding subheadings. Please discuss this issue on the article's talk page. (April 2023)

Part of a series onReading

Learning to read

Reading readiness

Vocabulary development

Vocabulary learning

Scientific theories and models

Dual route theory

Simple view of reading

Science of reading

Scarborough's Reading Rope

The active view of reading model

Cognitive processes

Comprehension

Phonemic awareness

Phonological awareness

Subvocalization

Word recognition

Reading instruction

Analytic phonics

Basal reader

Concept-oriented

Directed listening and thinking activity

Guided reading

Independent reading

Literature circle

Phonics

Reciprocal teaching

Structured word inquiry

Sustained silent reading

Synthetic phonics

Whole language

Reading rate

Fluency

Slow reading

Speed reading

Words per minute

Readability

Automatic assessment

Legibility

Readability test

Reading differences and disabilities

Dyslexia

Hyperlexia

Reading disability

Reading for special needs

Language

Alphabetic principle

Braille

Dolch word list

Grapheme

History of printing

Language

Morpheme

Orthography

Phoneme

Sight word

Vocabulary

Written language

Writing

Writing system

Literacy

Critical literacy

Close reading

Distant reading

Family literacy

Functional illiteracy

Great books

Literary criticism

Literature

Children's

vte

Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing"[1] with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use.[2] In other words, humans in literate societies have sets of practices for producing and consuming writing, and they also have beliefs about these practices.[3] Reading, in this view, is always reading something for some purpose; writing is always writing something for someone for some purpose.[4] Beliefs about reading and writing and their value for society and for the individual always influence the ways literacy is taught, learned, and practiced.[5]

H.S. Bhola described Sarah Gudschinsky's definition of literacy as "essential": "A person is literate who can 'read and understand everything he would have understood if had been spoken to him; and can write, so that it can be read, anything he can say'."[6] This definition focuses on comprehension and was created thinking of mother "tongue literacy" and does not include reciting passages in another language that the person does not understand.

Some researchers suggest that the study of "literacy" as a concept can be divided into two periods: the period before 1950, when literacy was understood solely as alphabetical literacy (word and letter recognition); and the period after 1950, when literacy slowly began to be considered as a wider concept and process, including the social and cultural aspects of reading and writing[7] and functional literacy.[8][9]

Adult literacy rates, 2015 or most recent observation[10]

Other definitions and uses of the term "literacy"[edit]

World illiteracy halved between 1970 and 2015.

Literate and illiterate world population between 1800 and 2016

Illiteracy rate in France in the 18th and 19th centuries

The range of definitions of literacy used by NGOs, think tanks, and advocacy groups since the 1990s suggests that this shift in understanding from "discrete skill" to "social practice" is both ongoing and uneven. Some definitions remain fairly closely aligned with the traditional "ability to read and write" connotation, whereas others take a broader view:

The 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (USA) included "quantitative literacy" (numeracy) in its treatment of literacy. It defined literacy as "the ability to use printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one's goals, and to develop one's knowledge and potential."[11] It included three types of adult literacy: prose (e.g., a newspaper article), documents (e.g., a bus schedule), and quantitative literacy (e.g., the use of arithmetic operations in a product advertisement).[12][13]

In 2015, the United Nations Statistics Division defined the youth literacy rate as "the percentage of the population aged 15–24 years who can both read and write with understanding a short simple statement on everyday life."[14]

In 2016, the European Literacy Policy Network defined literacy as "the ability to read and write [...] in all media (print or electronic), including digital literacy."[15]

In 2018, UNESCO included "printed and written materials" and "varying contexts" in its definition of literacy, i.e., "the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts."[16]

In 2019, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in its PIAAC adult skills surveys, included "written texts" in its definition of literacy, i.e., "the ability to understand, evaluate, use and engage with written texts in order to participate in society, achieve one's goals, and develop one's knowledge and potential."[17][18] Also, it treats numeracy and problem solving using technology as separate considerations.[19]

In 2021, Education Scotland and the National Literacy Trust in the UK included oral communication skills (listening and speaking) under the umbrella of literacy.[20][21]

As of 2021, the International Literacy Association (Newark, Delaware, US) uses "the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, compute, and communicate using visual, audible, and digital materials across disciplines and in any context."[22][23]

The expression "reading literacy" is used by the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), which has monitored international trends in reading achievement at the fourth grade level since 2001.[24]

Other organizations might include numeracy skills and technology skills separately but alongside literacy skills;[25] still others emphasize the increasing involvement of computers and other digital technologies in communication that necessitates additional skills (e.g., interfacing with web browsers and word processing programs, organizing and altering the configuration of files, etc.).[26]

The concept of multiliteracies has gained currency, particularly in English Language Arts curricula, on the grounds that reading "is interactive and informative, and occurs in ever-increasingly technological settings where information is part of spatial, audio, and visual patterns (Rhodes & Robnolt, 2009)".[27][28][verification needed] Objections have been raised that this concept downplays the importance of reading instruction that focuses on "alphabetic representations".[29] However, these are not mutually exclusive, as children can become proficient in word-reading while engaging with multiliteracies.[30]

Word reading is fundamental for multiple forms of communication.[30] Beginning in the 1940s, the term literacy has often been used to mean having knowledge or skill in a particular field, such as:

Computer literacy – Skill in using computers and digital technology[31][32]

Statistical literacy – Ability to understand and reason with statistics and data[33]

Critical literacy – Ability to find embedded discrimination in media[34]

Media literacy – Ability to navigate various types of media and see their claims in a broader context[35]

Ecological literacy – Ability to understand natural systems and their interactions[36]

Disaster literacy – Proposed model for the ability to understand and use life-saving information, including the ability to respond and recover from disasters effectively[37][38]

Health literacy – Ability to understand healthcare information[39][40][41]

Linguistic literacy – Ability to read, write, understand, and speak any type of language[42]

Social literacy – Literacy gained through social interactions[43]

Quantitative literacy aka numeracy – Ability to apply numerical concepts[13]

Visual literacy – the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from information presented in the form of an imagePages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback, e.g., body language, pictures, maps, and video[40]

Musical literacy – Refers to culturally determined systems of knowledge in music and to musical abilities.[44]

Social and cultural elements[edit]

The traditional concept of literacy widened as a consensus emerged among researchers in composition studies, education research, and anthropological linguistics that it makes little sense to speak of reading or writing outside of a specific context, with linguist James Paul Gee describing it as "simply incoherent."[45] For example, even the extremely early stages of acquiring mastery over symbol shapes take place in a particular social context (even if that context is "school"), and, after print acquisition, every instance of reading or writing will be for a specific purpose and occasion with particular readers and writers in mind. Reading and writing, therefore, are never separable from social and cultural elements.[46][47][48][49] A corollary point made by David Barton and Rosalind Ivanić, among others, is that the cognitive and societal effects of acquiring literacy are not easily predictable, since, as Brian Street has argued, "the ways in which people address reading and writing are themselves rooted in conceptions of knowledge, identity, and being."[50][51] Consequently, as Jack Goody has documented, historically, literacy has included the transformation of social systems that rely on literacy and the changing uses of literacy within those evolving systems.[52]

Functional illiteracy[edit]

Main article: Functional illiteracy

Functional illiteracy[note 1] relates to adults and has been defined in different ways:

Inability to use reading, writing, and calculation skills for their own and their community's development.[54]

Inability to read well enough to manage daily living and employment tasks that require reading skills beyond a basic level.[55]

Inability to understand complex texts despite adequate schooling, language skills, elementary reading skills, age, and IQ.[56]

It is distinguished from primary illiteracy (i.e., the inability to read and write a short, simple statement concerning one's own everyday life) and learning difficulties (e.g., dyslexia).[57] These categories have been contested—as has the concept of "illiteracy" itself—for being predicated on narrow assumptions, primarily derived from school-based contexts, about what counts as reading and writing (e.g., comprehending and following instructions).[58]

History[edit]

See also: History of writing and History of education

Prehistoric and ancient literacy[edit]

Origins of literacy[edit]

Script is thought to have developed independently at least five times in human history: in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus civilization, lowland Mesoamerica, and China.[59][60]

Bill of sale of a male slave and a building in Shuruppak, Sumerian tablet, c. 2600 BCE

Between 3500 BCE and 3000 BCE, in southern Mesopotamia, the ancient Sumerians invented writing.[61] During this era, literacy was "a largely functional matter, propelled by the need to manage the new quantities of information and the new type of governance created by trade and large scale production".[62] Early writing systems first emerged as a recording system in which people used tokens with impressed markings to manage trade and agricultural production.[63] The token system served as a precursor to early cuneiform writing once people began recording information on clay tablets. Proto-Cuneiform texts exhibit not only numerical signs but also ideograms depicting objects being counted.[59] Though the traditional view had been that cuneiform literacy was restricted to a class of scribes, assyriologists including Claus Wilcke and Dominique Charpin have argued that functional literacy was somewhat widespread by the Old Babylonian period.[64][65] Nonetheless, professional scribes became central to law, finances, accounting, government, administration, medicine, magic, divination, literature, and prayers.[66]

Egyptian hieroglyphs emerged between 3300 BCE and 3100 BCE; the iconography emphasized power among royals and other elites. The Egyptian hieroglyphic writing system was the first notation system to have phonetic values; these symbols are called phonograms.[67]

Writing in lowland Mesoamerica was first used by the Olmec and Zapotec civilizations in 900–400 BCE. These civilizations used glyphic writing and bar-and-dot numerical notation systems for purposes related to royal iconography and calendar systems.[68]

The earliest written notations in China date back to the Shang Dynasty in 1200 BCE. These systematic notations, inscribed on bones, recorded sacrifices made, tributes received, and animals hunted, which were activities of the elite. These oracle-bone inscriptions were the early ancestors of modern Chinese script and contained logosyllabic script and numerals. By the time of the consolidation of the Chinese Empire during the Qin and Han dynasties (c. 200 BCE), written documents were central to the formation and policing of a hierarchical bureaucratic governance structure reinforced through law. Within this legal order, written records kept track of and controlled citizen movements, created records of misdeeds, and documented the actions and judgments of government officials.[69]

Indus script is largely pictorial and has not yet been deciphered; as such, it is unknown whether it includes abstract signs. It is thought that they wrote from right to left and that the script is logographic. Because it has not been deciphered, linguists disagree on whether it is a complete and independent writing system; however, it is generally thought to be an independent writing system that emerged in the Harappa culture.[70]

Existing evidence suggests that most early acts of literacy were, in some areas (such as Egypt), closely tied to power and chiefly used for management practices, and probably less than 1% of the population was literate, as it was confined to a very small group.[71] Scholarship by others, such as Dominique Charpin and a project from the European Union, however, suggest that this was not the case in all ancient societies: both Charpin and the EU's emerging scholarship suggest that writing and literacy were far more widespread in Mesopotamia than scholars previously thought.[72][73][74]

Origins of the alphabet[edit]

According to social anthropologist Jack Goody, there are two interpretations regarding the origin of the alphabet. Many classical scholars, such as historian Ignace Gelb, credit the Ancient Greeks for creating the first alphabetic system (c. 750 BCE) that used distinctive signs for consonants and vowels. Goody contests:

The importance of Greek culture of the subsequent history of Western Europe has led to an over-emphasis, by classicists and others, on the addition of specific vowel signs to the set of consonantal ones that had been developed earlier in Western Asia.[75]

Thus, many scholars argue that the ancient Semitic-speaking peoples of northern Canaan (modern-day Syria) invented the consonantal alphabet as early as 1500 BCE. Much of this theory's development is credited to English archeologist Flinders Petrie, who, in 1905, came across a series of Canaanite inscriptions in the turquoise mines of Serabit el-Khadem. Ten years later, English Egyptologist Alan Gardiner reasoned that these letters contain an alphabet as well as references to the Canaanite goddess Asherah. In 1948, William F. Albright deciphered the text using new evidence, including a series of inscriptions from Ugarit. Discovered in 1929 by French archaeologist Claude F. A. Schaeffer, some of these inscriptions were mythological texts (written in an early Canaanite dialect) that consisted of a 30-letter cuneiform consonantal alphabet.[76]

Another significant discovery was made in 1953 when three arrowheads were uncovered, each containing identical Canaanite inscriptions from 12th century BCE. According to Frank Moore Cross, these inscriptions consisted of alphabetic signs that originated during the transitional development from pictographic script to a linear alphabet. Moreover, he asserts, "These inscriptions also provided clues to extend the decipherment of earlier and later alphabetic texts".[77]

The Canaanite script's consonantal system inspired alphabetical developments in later systems. During the Late Bronze Age, successor alphabets appeared throughout the Mediterranean region and were used in Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic.[67]

According to Goody, these cuneiform scripts may have influenced the development of the Greek alphabet several centuries later. Historically, the Greeks contended that their writing system was modeled after the Phoenicians. However, many Semitic scholars now believe that Ancient Greek is more consistent with an early form of Canaanite that was used c. 1100 BCE. While the earliest Greek inscriptions are dated circa 8th century BCE, epigraphical comparisons to Proto-Canaanite suggest that the Greeks may have adopted the consonantal alphabet as early as 1100 BCE and later "added in five characters to represent vowels".[75]

Phoenician, which is considered to contain the first linear alphabet, rapidly spread to Mediterranean port cities in northern Canaan.[77] Some archeologists believe that Phoenician influenced the Hebrew and Aramaic alphabets, as these languages evolved during the same time period, share similar features, and are commonly categorized into the same language group.[78]

When the Israelites migrated to Canaan between 1200 and 1000 BCE, they adopted a variation of the Canaanite alphabet. Baruch ben Neriah, Jeremiah's scribe, used this alphabet to create the later scripts of the Old Testament. The early Hebrew alphabet was prominent in the Mediterranean region until Neo-Babylonian rulers exiled the Jews to Babylon in the 6th century BCE. It was then that the new script (Square Hebrew) emerged, and the older one rapidly died out.[75]

The Aramaic alphabet also emerged sometime between 1200 and 1000 BCE. Although early examples are scarce, archeologists have uncovered a wide range of later Aramaic texts, written as early as the seventh century BCE. In the Near East, it was common to record events on clay using the cuneiform script; however, writing Aramaic on leather parchments became common during the Neo-Assyrian empire. With the rise of the Persians in the 5th century BCE, Achaemenid rulers adopted Aramaic as the "diplomatic language".[75]

Darius the Great standardized Aramaic, which became the Imperial Aramaic script. This Imperial Aramaic alphabet rapidly spread: west, to the Kingdom of Nabataea, then to the Sinai and Arabian peninsulas, eventually making its way to Africa; and east, where it later influenced the development of the Brahmi script in India. Over the next few centuries, Imperial Aramaic script in Persia evolved into Pahlavi, "as well as for a range of alphabets used by early Turkish and Mongol tribes in Siberia, Mongolia and Turkestan".[75] During this period, literacy spread among the merchant classes, and 15-20% of the total population may have been literate.[citation needed]

The Aramaic language declined with the spread of Islam, which was accompanied by the spread of Arabic.[79]

Classical and post-classical literacy[edit]

Further information: Latin alphabet

Until recently, it was thought that the majority of people were illiterate in the classical world,[note 2] though recent work challenges this perception.[81][82] Anthony DiRenzo asserts that Roman society was "a civilization based on the book and the register" and that "no one, either free or slave, could afford to be illiterate".[83] Similarly, Dupont points out, "The written word was all around them, in both public and private life: laws, calendars, regulations at shrines, and funeral epitaphs were engraved in stone or bronze. The Republic amassed huge archives of reports on every aspect of public life."[84] The imperial civilian administration produced masses of documentation used in judicial, fiscal, and administrative matters, as did the municipalities. The army kept extensive records relating to supply and duty rosters and submitted reports. Merchants, shippers, and landowners (and their personal staffs), especially of the larger enterprises, must have been literate.[citation needed]

In the late fourth century, the Desert Father Pachomius would expect the literacy of a candidate for admission to his monasteries:[note 3]

They shall give him twenty Psalms or two of the Apostles' epistles or some other part of Scripture. And if he is illiterate he shall go at the first, third and sixth hours to someone who can teach and has been appointed for him. He shall stand before him and learn very studiously and with all gratitude. The fundamentals of a syllable, the verbs and nouns shall all be written for him and even if he does not want to he shall be compelled to read.

During the 4th and 5th centuries, the Church made efforts to ensure a better clergy, especially the bishops, who were expected to have a classical education—the hallmark of a socially acceptable person in higher society.[citation needed] Even after the remnants of the Western Roman Empire fell in the 470s, literacy continued to be a distinguishing mark of the elite, as communication skills were still important in political and church life (bishops were largely drawn from the senatorial class) in a new cultural synthesis that made "Christianity the Roman religion".[85] However, these skills were less needed in the absence of a large imperial administrative apparatus whose middle and top echelons were dominated by the elite.[note 4] Even so, in pre-modern times, it is unlikely that literacy was found in more than about 30–40% of the population. During the Dark Ages, the highest percentage of literacy was found among the clergy and monks, as they made up much of the staff needed to administer the states of western Europe.[citation needed]

An abundance of graffiti written in the Nabataean script dating back to the beginning of the first millennium CE has been taken to imply a relatively high degree of literacy among the general population in the ancient Arabic-speaking world.[86]

Post-Antiquity illiteracy was made worse by the lack of a suitable writing medium, as when the Western Roman Empire collapsed, the import of papyrus to Europe ceased. Since papyrus perishes easily and does not last well in the wetter European climate, parchment was used, which was expensive and accessible only by the church and the wealthy. Paper was introduced into Europe via Spain in the 11th century and spread north slowly over the next four centuries. Literacy saw a resurgence as a result, and by the 15th century, paper was widespread.[87]

The Reformation stressed the importance of literacy and being able to read the Bible. The Protestant countries were the first to attain full literacy.[88]

In a more secular context, inspired by the Enlightenment, Sweden implemented programs in 1723 aimed at making the population fully literate.[89] Other countries implemented similar measures at this time. These included Denmark in 1739, Poland in 1783, and France in 1794/5.[89]

Literacy was well established in early 18th century England, when books geared towards children became far more common. Near the end of the century, as many as 50 were printed every year in major cities around England.[90]

Literacy and industrialization[edit]

Further information: Industrial Revolution

In the 19th century, reading would become even more common in the United Kingdom. Public notes, broadsides, handbills, catchpennies and printed songs would have been usual street literature before newspapers became common. Other forms of popular reading material included advertising for events, theaters, and goods for sale.[91]

In his 1836/1837 Pickwick Papers Charles Dickens's said that:

even the common people, both in town and country, are equally intense in their admiration. Frequently, have we seen the butcher-boy, with his tray on his shoulder, reading with the greatest avidity the last "Pickwick"; the footman (whose fopperies are so inimitably laid bare), the maidservant, the chimney sweep, all classes, in fact, read "Boz".[92]

From the mid-19th century onwards, the Second Industrial Revolution saw technological improvements in paper production. The new distribution networks, enabled by improved roads and rail, resulted in an increased capacity to supply printed material. Social and educational changes increased the demand for reading matter, as rising literacy rates, particularly among the middle and working classes, created a new mass market for printed material.[93] Wider schooling helped increase literacy rates, which in turn helped lower the cost of publication.[92]

Unskilled labor forces were common in Western Europe, and, as British industry improved, more engineers and skilled workers who could handle technical instructions and complex situations were needed. Literacy was essential to be hired.[94] A senior government official told Parliament in 1870:

Upon the speedy provision of elementary education depends our industrial prosperity. It is of no use trying to give technical teaching to our citizens without elementary education; uneducated labourers—and many of our labourers are utterly uneducated—are, for the most part, unskilled labourers, and if we leave our work–folk any longer unskilled, notwithstanding their strong sinews and determined energy, they will become overmatched in the competition of the world.[94]: 159

In the late 19th century, gas and electric lighting were becoming more common in private homes, replacing candlelight and oil lamps, enabling reading after dark and increasing the appeal of literacy.[92]

Modern literacy[edit]

Spread of literacy since the mid-twentieth century[edit]

Adult literacy rates have increased at a constant pace since 1950.

Data published by UNESCO shows that the worldwide literacy rate among adults has increased, on average, by 5 percentage points every decade since 1950, from 55.7% in 1950 to 86.2% in 2015. Due to rapid population growth, while the percentage of adults who were illiterate decreased, the actual number of illiterate adults increased from 700 million in 1950 to 878 million in 1990, before starting to decrease and falling to 745 million by 2015. The number of illiterate adults remains higher than in 1950, "despite decades of universal education policies, literacy interventions and the spread of print material and information and communications technology (ICT)".[95]

Regional disparities[edit]

Available global data indicates significant variations in literacy rates between world regions. North America, Europe, West Asia, and Central Asia have achieved almost full adult (age 15 or older) literacy for both men and women. Most countries in East Asia and the Pacific, as well as Latin America and the Caribbean, have adult literacy rates over 90%.[96] In other regions, illiteracy persists at higher rates; as of 2013, the adult literacy rate in South Asia and North Africa was 67.55% and 59.76% in Sub-Saharan Africa.[97][failed verification]

Literacy has rapidly spread in several regions over the last twenty-five years.

In much of the world, high youth literacy rates suggest that illiteracy will become less common as more educated younger generations replace less educated older ones.[98] However, in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where the vast majority of the world's illiterate youth live, lower school enrollment implies that illiteracy will persist to a greater degree.[98] According to 2013 data, the youth literacy rate (ages 15 to 24) is 84% in South Asia and North Africa and 70% in sub-Saharan Africa.[97]

However, the literate/illiterate distinction is not clear-cut. Given that having a literate person in the household confers many of the benefits of literacy, some recent literature in economics, starting with the work of Kaushik Basu and James Foster, distinguishes between a "proximate illiterate" and an "isolated illiterate". A "proximate illiterate" lives in a household with literate members, while an "isolated illiterate" lives in a household where everyone is illiterate. Isolated illiteracy is more common among older populations in wealthier nations, where people are less likely to live in multigenerational households with potentially literate relatives. A 2018/2019 UNESCO report noted that "conversely, in low and lower middle income countries, isolated illiteracy is concentrated among younger people," along with increased rates among rural populations and women. This evidence indicates that illiteracy is a complex phenomenon with multiple factors impacting rates of illiteracy and the type of illiteracy one may experience.[99]

Literacy has rapidly spread in several regions in the last twenty-five years,[95] and the United Nations's global initiative with Sustainable Development Goal 4 is also gaining momentum.[100]

Gender disparities[edit]

Adult literacy rate, male (%), 2015[101]

Adult literacy rate, female (%), 2015[102]

Gender parity indices in youth literacy rates by region, 1990–2015. Progress towards gender parity in literacy started after 1990.

According to 2015 data collected by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, about two-thirds (63%) of the world's illiterate adults are women. This disparity was even starker in previous decades, and from 1970 to 2000, the global gender gap in literacy decreased significantly.[103] In recent years, however, this progress has stagnated, with the gender gap holding almost constant over the last two decades.[96] In general, the gender gap in literacy is not as pronounced as the regional gap; that is, differences between countries are often larger than gender differences within countries.[104]

Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest overall literacy rate and the widest gender gap: 52% of adult women and 68% of adult men are literate. A similar gender disparity exists in North Africa, where 70% of adult women are literate versus 86% of adult men. In South Asia, 58% of adult women and 77% of adult men are literate.[96]

The 1990 World Conference on Education for All, held in Jomtien, Thailand, brought attention to the literacy gender gap and prompted many developing countries to prioritize women's literacy.[105]

In many contexts, female illiteracy coexists with other aspects of gender inequality. Martha Nussbaum says illiterate women are more vulnerable to becoming trapped in an abusive marriage, given that illiteracy limits their employment opportunities and worsens their position when negotiating within the household. Moreover, Nussbaum links literacy to the ability for women to effectively communicate and collaborate with one another "to participate in a larger movement for political change."[106]

Challenges of increasing female literacy[edit]

Social barriers can limit opportunities to increase literacy skills among women and girls; making literacy classes available can be ineffective when it conflicts with the use of the valuable limited time of women and girls.[107] School-age girls may face more expectations than their male counterparts to perform household work and care for younger siblings.[108] Generational dynamics can also perpetuate these disparities; illiterate parents may not readily appreciate the value of literacy for their daughters, particularly in traditional, rural societies with expectations that girls will remain at home.[109]

A World Bank and International Center for Research on Women review of academic literature concluded that child marriage, which predominantly impacts girls, tends to reduce literacy levels.[110] A 2008 analysis of the issue in Bangladesh found that for every additional year a girl's marriage is delayed, her likelihood of literacy increases by 5.6%.[111] Similarly, a 2014 study found that in sub-Saharan Africa, marrying early significantly decreases a girl's probability of literacy, even after accounting for other variables.[112] Therefore, a 2015 literature review recommended marriage postponement as part of a strategy to increase educational attainment levels, including female literacy.[113]

Gender gap for boys in developed countries[edit]

While women and girls comprise the majority of the global illiterate population, in many developed countries, a literacy-gender gap exists in the opposite direction. Data from the Programme for International Student Assessment has consistently shown the literacy underachievement of boys within member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).[114] In view of such findings, many education specialists have recommended changing classroom practices to better accommodate boys' learning styles and removing any gender stereotypes that may create the perception that reading and writing are feminine activities.[115][116]

Socioeconomic impact[edit]

Many policy analysts consider literacy rates to be a crucial measure of the value of a region's human capital. For example, literate people can be more easily trained than illiterate people and generally have a higher socioeconomic status;[117] thus, they enjoy better health and employment prospects. The international community has come to consider literacy as a key facilitator and goal of development.[118] In regard to the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the UN in 2015, the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning has declared the "central role of literacy in responding to sustainable development challenges such as health, social equality, economic empowerment and environmental sustainability."[119]

A majority of prisoners have been found to be illiterate, and in Edinburgh prison, winner of the 2010 Libraries Change Lives Award, "the library has become the cornerstone of the prison's literacy strategy", reducing recidivism and reoffending and allowing incarcerated people to work toward attaining higher socioeconomic status once released.[120]

Effects on literacy learning[edit]

As socioeconomics affects brain development and brain functions are heavily involved in processing both input and output, a learner's environment can affect the cognitive process of learning how to read and write.[121] Before a child enters a school setting, their executive function is influenced by their home environment.[122] Research demonstrates that for children who grow up in poverty, their socioeconomic circumstances severely strain their "neuro-endocrine and brain function".[122] This affects a child's ability to regulate environmental stimuli, process and structure information, and plan and effectively execute tasks that involve their working memory[121]—all of these are necessary cognitive facilities to successfully learn how to read and write. Living in poverty is stressful for all involved but is cognitively damaging for young children.[123]

A study done by NICHD indicates that socioeconomics plays a role for children who are young when the family experiences poverty, but shows no indication of adverse effects on reading achievement or behavior for adolescents entering poverty.[124] The data extensively shows that children from low socioeconomic backgrounds have poorer literacy performance, especially in reading. A study done by the OECD, which included over 25 countries in Europe, found that in all studied countries, students who lived in low-income households scored lower in reading than students who lived in high-income households.[125]

Parenting also affects a child's literacy. Field research was done by collecting data from families that were upper, middle, or lower class, or on welfare. The results found that, in a 100-hour week, children in upper-class households experienced an average of over 200,000 words, those in middle- and lower-class households heard about 125,000 words, and children from households on welfare were exposed to the fewest words—62,000 words. This indicates that a child from an upper-class family would be exposed to 8 million more words than a child from a family on welfare.[126] Outside of word exposure, which is essential for word acquisition, the National Center for Educational Statistics found that 41.9% of children from low-income families scored substantially lower on most reading achievements for grades 4, 8, and 12 in 2013.[127]

According to a study performed by ANOVA, multiple socioeconomic variables influence children, such as parental education level, parental occupation, health history, and even usage of technology within the home. With these factors in mind, their study showed that young children are especially susceptible to environmental factors, meaning socioeconomics affects them cognitively and can have adverse effects as their brains continue to develop.[citation needed] However, another study done by the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) suggests a slightly different conclusion.[128] While the study agrees that poverty negatively affects childhood literacy, some nuances are added. In both studies, children who experienced poverty scored lower in reading assessments, but the NLSY's study noted that the duration of poverty altered the literacy outcome.[129] It found that children ages 5–11 who experienced "persistent poverty" were more adversely affected than their peers who never experienced poverty. The study acknowledged that other factors affected these children's reading scores, particularly maternal influence. The mothers of these households were scaled based on a "home environment" score, which measured their emotional and verbal responsiveness, acceptance, and involvement with the child and organization. Households experiencing poverty tended to have lower scores, and lower scores correlated with lower reading levels. The study also showed that the effects of poverty on child literacy differed by ethnicity, culture, and gender.[129]

Health impacts[edit]

Print illiteracy generally corresponds with less knowledge about modern health, hygiene, and nutritional practices, and a lack of knowledge can exacerbate a range of health issues.[130] Within developing countries in particular, literacy rates also have implications for child mortality; in these contexts, children of literate mothers are 50% more likely to live past age 5 than children of illiterate mothers.[108] Therefore, public health research has increasingly focused on the potential for literacy skills to allow women to more successfully access healthcare and thereby facilitate gains in child health.[131]

A 2014 descriptive research survey project correlates literacy levels with the socioeconomic status of women in Oyo State, Nigeria. The study shows that developing literacy in the region will bring "economic empowerment and will encourage rural women to practice hygiene, which will in turn lead to the reduction of birth and death rates."[132]

Economic impacts[edit]

Literacy can increase job opportunities and access to higher education. In 2009, the National Adult Literacy Agency in Ireland commissioned a cost–benefit analysis of adult literacy training, which concluded that there were economic gains for the individuals, the companies they worked for, and the Exchequer, as well as the economy and the country as a whole (e.g., increased GDP).[133]

Korotayev and coauthors found a rather significant correlation between the level of literacy in the early 19th century and successful modernization and economic breakthroughs in the late 20th century, as "literate people could be characterized by a greater innovative-activity level, which provides opportunities for modernization, development, and economic growth."[134]

Lifespan development and promotion efforts[edit]

While informal learning within the home can play an important role in literacy development, gains in childhood literacy often occur in primary school settings. Continuing the global expansion of public education is thus a frequent focus of literacy advocates.[98]: 103–104 These kinds of broad improvements in education often require centralized efforts by national governments; however, local literacy projects implemented by NGOs can play an important role, particularly in rural contexts.[135]

Funding for both youth and adult literacy programs often comes from large international development organizations. USAID, for example, steered donors like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Global Partnership for Education toward the issue of childhood literacy by developing the Early Grade Reading Assessment.[136] Advocacy groups like the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education have frequently called upon international organizations such as UNESCO, the International Labour Organization, the World Health Organization, and the World Bank to prioritize support for adult women's literacy.[137] Efforts to increase adult literacy often encompass other development priorities as well; for example, initiatives in Ethiopia, Morocco, and India have combined adult literacy programs with vocational skills trainings in order to encourage program enrollment and address the complex needs of women (and other marginalized groups) who lack economic opportunities.[138]

In 2013, the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning published a set of case studies[138] on programs that successfully improved female literacy rates. The report features countries from a variety of regions and differing income levels, reflecting the general global consensus on "the need to empower women through the acquisition of literacy skills."[138]: 7 Part of the impetus for UNESCO's focus on literacy is a broader effort to respond to globalization and "the shift towards knowledge-based societies" that it has produced.[139] While globalization presents emerging challenges, it also provides new opportunities. Many education and development specialists are hopeful that new ICTs will expand literacy learning opportunities for children and adults, even in countries that have historically struggled to improve literacy rates through more conventional means.[98]: 112 In 2007, the nonprofit organization LitWorld was founded to promote literacy around the world. Based in the United States, the organization has developed programs to be applied internationally with the goal of teaching children to speak, read, and write, regardless of ethnicity, gender, or economic status.[140]

Although most people acquire literacy during childhood, it continues to develop throughout life;[141] literacy is not a skill that is fixed once a person leaves school but remains malleable across the entire lifespan. Among adults, both gains and losses in literacy occur in roughly equal measure, sometimes over relatively short periods of a few years.[141] Even adults with very low literacy levels can acquire literacy over time.[142][143] Whether a person experiences gains or losses depends on a range of factors, and one of the key factors are the demands and opportunities to engage in literary practices in the workplace, home, or other contexts.[144][145]

Literacy as a development indicator[edit]

Youth and adult literacy rate, 2000–2016 and projections to 2030

The Human Development Index, produced by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), uses education as one of its three indicators. Originally, adult literacy represented two-thirds of this education index weight. In 2010, however, the UNDP replaced the adult literacy measure with mean years of schooling. A 2011 UNDP research paper frames this change as a way to "ensure current relevance", arguing that gains in global literacy already achieved between 1970 and 2010 mean that literacy will be "unlikely to be as informative of the future."[146] Other scholars, however, have since warned against overlooking the importance of literacy as an indicator and goal for development, particularly for marginalized groups such as women and rural populations.[147]

The World Bank, along with the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, has developed the Learning Poverty concept and an associated measure that measures the proportion of students who are unable to read and understand a simple story by age 10. In low- and middle-income countries, 53% of children are "learning-poor", as are up to 80% of children in poor countries.[148] In fact, these new measures indicate that these high rates of illiteracy are an "early warning sign that SDG 4 for education and all related global goals are in jeopardy."[148] Current progress in improving literacy rates is seen as much too slow to meet the SDG goals, as at the current rate, approximately 43% of children will still be learning poorly by 2030.[148]

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) assesses children on reading and math skills at age 15. PISA-D encourages and facilitates PISA testing in low- and middle-income countries.[149] In 2019, "PISA-D results reveal exceptionally low scores for participating countries. Only 23 percent of students tested achieved the minimum level of proficiency in reading, compared with 80 percent of OECD."[150] Minimum proficiency requires students to "read 'simple and familiar texts and understand them literally', as well as demonstrating some ability to connect pieces of information and draw inferences."[150]

Measuring literacy[edit]

In 2020, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics estimated the global literacy rate at 86.68%.[151] It is important to understand how literacy rates have been measured in the past as well as how they are currently being measured. Starting in 1975, the head of a household answered a simple yes-or-no question asking whether household members could read and write; in 1988, some countries started using self-reporting as well.[152] Self-reported data is subjective and has several limitations. First, a simple yes-or-no question does not capture the continuum of literacy. Second, self-reports are dependent on what each individual interprets "reading" and "writing" to mean. In some cultures, drawing a picture may be understood as writing one's name. Lastly, many of the surveys asked one individual to report literacy on behalf of others, which "introduces further noise, in particular when it comes to estimating literacy among women and children, since these groups are less often considered 'head of household'".[152]

In 2007, several countries began introducing literacy tests as a more accurate measurement of literacy rates, including Liberia, South Korea, Guyana, Kenya, and Bangladesh.[152] However, in 2016, the majority of counties still reported literacy through either self-reported measures or other indirect estimates.[152]Students in grade 2 who can't read a single word

These indirect measurements are potentially problematic, as many countries measure literacy based on years of schooling. In Greece, an individual is considered literate if they have finished six years of primary education, while in Paraguay, individuals are considered literate if they have completed just two years of primary school.[152]

However, emerging research reveals that educational attainment (e.g., years of schooling) does not perfectly correlate with literacy. Literacy tests show that in many low-income countries, a large proportion of students who have attended two years of primary school cannot read a single word. These rates are as high as 90% of second-grade students in Malawi, 85.4% in India, 83% in Ghana, and 64% in Uganda.[153] In India, over 50% of Grade 5 students have not mastered Grade 2 literacy. In Nigeria, only about 1 in 10 women who completed Grade 6 can read a single sentence in their native language.[154] This data reveals that literacy rates measured by using years of schooling as a proxy are potentially unreliable and do not reflect the true literacy rates of populations.

Literacy as a human right[edit]

Unlike medieval times, when reading and writing skills were restricted to a few elites and the clergy, literacy skills are now expected from every member of society.[155] Literacy is therefore considered a human right, essential for lifelong learning and social change, as supported by the 1996 Report of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-First Century and the 1997 Hamburg Declaration:

Literacy, broadly conceived as the basic knowledge and skills needed by all in a rapidly changing world, is a fundamental human right. (...) There are millions, the majority of whom are women, who lack opportunities to learn or who have insufficient skills to be able to assert this right. The challenge is to enable them to do so. This will often imply the creation of preconditions for learning through awareness raising and empowerment. Literacy is also a catalyst for participation in social, cultural, political and economic activities, and for learning throughout life.[156][157][158]

In 2016, the European Literacy Policy Network (an association of European literacy professionals) published a document entitled the European Declaration of the Right to Literacy.[159] It states that:

Everyone in Europe has the right to acquire literacy. EU Member States should ensure that people of all ages, regardless of social class, religion, ethnicity, origin and gender, are provided with the necessary resources and opportunities to develop sufficient and sustainable literacy skills in order to effectively understand and use written communication be in handwritten, in print or digital form.[160]

Teaching literacy[edit]

Main article: Reading § Teaching reading

For the teaching of writing, see Composition studies and Teaching Writing in the United States.

The examples and perspective in this section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. You may improve this section, discuss the issue on the talk page, or create a new section, as appropriate. (April 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Brain areas involved in literacy acquisition

The teaching of literacy involves both the teaching of reading and the teaching of writing. In school, reading and writing are often taught as separate skills. However, children show curiosity about the written word and begin to experiment with both in a process of emergent literacy and making sense of (and using) the writing system they see used around them. Every new piece of writing draws on previous reading through a process of intertextuality, sometimes explicitly through citation, as in academic writing, and writing about reading is one of the major approaches for teaching writing in higher education.[161] Intertextuality, however, can also be implicit through well-known, recognizable phrases from specific works or genres or through the development of a distinct writing style. Evidence has supported the integration of reading and writing at all levels of schooling, as improvement in one area supports the other.[162][163] A series of metastudies have examined the effectiveness of various methods of teaching writing, revealing that attention to context, cognitive/motivational factors, and the instruction strategy, among other things, are important.[164][165]

Critiques of autonomous models of literacy notwithstanding, the belief that reading development is key to literacy remains dominant, at least in the United States, where it is understood as the progression of skills that begins with the ability to understand spoken words and decode written words and culminates in the deep understanding of the text. Reading development involves a range of complex language underpinnings, including awareness of speech sounds (phonology), spelling patterns (orthography), word meaning (semantics), syntax, and patterns of word formation (morphology), all of which provide a necessary platform for reading fluency and comprehension. Once these skills are acquired, it is believed a reader can attain full language literacy, which includes the abilities to apply to printed material critical analysis, inference, and synthesis; to write with accuracy and coherence; and to use information and insights from text as the basis for informed decisions and creative thought.[citation needed]

For this reason, teaching English reading literacy in the United States is dominated by a focus on a set of discrete decoding skills. From this perspective, literacy—or rather, reading—comprises a number of sub-skills that can be taught to students. These sub-skills include phonological awareness, phonics (decoding), fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. Mastering each of these sub-skills is necessary for students to become proficient readers.[166]

From this same perspective, readers of alphabetic languages must understand the alphabetic principle to master basic reading skills. For this purpose, a writing system is "alphabetic" if it uses symbols to represent phonemes (individual language sounds),[167] though the degree of correspondence between letters and sounds varies between alphabetic languages. Syllabic writing systems (such as Japanese kana) use a symbol to represent a single syllable, and logographic writing systems (such as Chinese) use a symbol to represent a morpheme.[168]

There are a number of approaches to teaching reading.[169] Each is shaped by its assumptions about what literacy is and how it is best learned by students. Phonics instruction, for example, focuses on reading at the level of letters or symbols and their sounds (i.e., sublexical).[170] It teaches readers to decode the letters, or groups of letters, that make up a word. A common method of teaching phonics is synthetic phonics, in which a novice reader pronounces each individual sound and blends them to pronounce the whole word. Another approach is embedded phonics instruction, used more often in whole language reading instruction, in which novice readers learn about the individual letters in words on a just-in-time, just-in-place basis that is tailored to meet each student's reading and writing learning needs.[167] That is, teachers provide phonics instruction opportunistically, within the context of stories or student writing that feature repeat instances of a particular letter or group of letters. Embedded instruction combines letter-sound knowledge with the use of meaningful context to read new and difficult words.[171] Techniques such as directed listening and thinking activities can be used to aid children in learning how to read and in reading comprehension. For students at both primary and secondary levels, writing about what they read as they are learning to write has been found to also be effective in improving their reading skills.[172]

The two most commonly used approaches to reading instruction are structured literacy instruction and balanced literacy instruction. The structured literacy approach explicitly and systematically focuses on phonological awareness, word recognition, phonics, decoding, spelling, and syntax at both the sentence and paragraph levels.[173] The balanced literacy approach, as the name suggests, balances emphasis on phonics and decoding; shared, guided, and independent reading; and grapheme representations with context and imagery.[173] Both approaches have their critics—those who oppose structured literacy claim that by restricting students to phonemes, their fluency development is limited; critics of balanced literacy claim that if phonics and decoding instruction are neglected, students will have to rely on compensatory strategies when confronted with unfamiliar text.[173][note 5]

These strategies are taught to students as part of the balanced literacy approach based on a theory about reading development called the three-cueing system. As the name suggests, the three-cueing system uses three cues to determine the meaning of words: grapho-phonetic cues (letter-sound relationships); syntactic cues (grammatical structure); and semantic cues (a word making sense in context).[175][better source needed] However, cognitive neuroscientist Mark Seidenberg and professor Timothy Shanahan do not support the theory. They say the three-cueing system's value in reading instruction "is a magnificent work of the imagination", and it developed not because teachers lack integrity, commitment, motivation, sincerity, or intelligence, but because they "were poorly trained and advised" about the science of reading. In England, the simple view of reading and synthetic phonics are intended to replace "the searchlights multi-cueing model".[176][177][178][specify]

In his 2009 book Reading in the Brain, cognitive neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene said "cognitive psychology directly refutes any notion of teaching via a 'global' or 'whole language' method." He goes on to talk about "the myth of whole-word reading", saying it has been refuted by recent[when?] experiments. "We do not recognize a printed word through a holistic grasping of its contours, because our brain breaks it down into letters and graphemes."[179]

However, a 2012 hypothesis proposed that reading might be acquired naturally, in the same manner as spoken language, if print is constantly available at an early age.[180] According to this theory, if an appropriate form of written text is made available before formal schooling begins, reading should be learned inductively, emerge naturally, and have no significant negative consequences. This proposal challenges the commonly held belief that written language requires formal instruction and schooling; thus, its success would change current views of literacy and schooling. Using developments in behavioral science and technology, Technology-Assisted Reading Acquisition (TARA), an interactive system, would enable young pre-literate children to accurately perceive and learn the properties of written language through simple exposure to the written form.[citation needed]

In Australia, a number of state governments have introduced Reading Challenges to improve literacy. The Premier's Reading Challenge in South Australia, launched by Premier Mike Rann, has one of the highest participation rates in the world for reading challenges. It has been embraced by more than 95% of public, private, and religious schools.[181][full citation needed]

Post-conflict settings[edit]

Programs have been implemented in regions that have an ongoing conflict or are in a post-conflict stage. The Norwegian Refugee Council Pack program has been used in 13 post-conflict countries since 2003. The program organizers believe that daily routines and otherwise predictable activities help ease the transition from war to peace. Learners can select one area of vocational training for a year-long period; they also complete required courses in agriculture, life skills, literacy, and numeracy. Results have shown that active participation and management of the members of the program are important to the success of the program. These programs share the use of integrated basic education, e.g., literacy, numeracy, scientific knowledge, local history and culture, native and mainstream language skills, and apprenticeships.[182]

Teaching migrant, immigrant, and non-native users[edit]

Although there is considerable awareness that language deficiencies, including a lack of proficiency, are disadvantageous to immigrants settling into a new country, there is a lack of pedagogical approaches to teaching literacy to migrant English language learners (ELLs). Harvard scholar Catherine Snow called for the gap to be addressed: "The TESOL field needs a concerted research effort to inform literacy instruction for such children—to determine when to start literacy instruction and how to adapt it to the LS reader's needs."[183] Recent developments to address the gap in teaching literacy to foreign language learners[note 6] have been ongoing, with promising results seen with a curricular framework from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, which integrates Teaching for Understanding.[184]

A series of pilot projects have been carried out in the Middle East and Africa,[185] and significant interest from the learners has been seen in the use of visual arts as springboards for literacy-oriented instruction. In one project, migrant women were provided with cameras and took the instructor on a walking tour of their village. There, they photographed places and activities that would later be used for writings about their daily lives—in essence, a narrative of life. Other primers for writing activities include painting, sketching, and other craft projects.

Sample milestone sketch

In another series of pilot studies, alternatives to instructing literacy to migrant English-language learners were investigated,[186] starting with simple trials aiming to test the effects of teaching photography to participants with no prior photography background and then painting and sketching activities that could later be integrated into a larger pedagogical initiative. In efforts to develop alternative approaches for literacy instruction utilizing visual arts, work was carried out with Afghan laborers, Bangladeshi tailors, Emirati media students, internal Ethiopian migrants (both laborers and university students), and a street child.[185][186][187]

Reviewing photos after a photowalk

It should be pointed out that in these challenging contexts, sometimes the teaching of literacy may have unforeseen barriers. The EL Gazette reported that in the trials carried out in Ethiopia, for example, it was found that all ten of the participants had problems with vision.[187] In order to overcome this or avoid such challenges, preliminary health checks can help inform pre-teaching in order to better assist in the teaching and learning of literacy.[citation needed]

Using a visual arts approach to literacy instruction can provide benefits by incorporating a traditional literacy approach (reading and writing) while also addressing 21st-century digital literacy through the use of digital cameras and posting images onto the web. Many scholars, such as Hutchison and Woodward, feel that it is necessary to include digital literacy under the traditional umbrella of literacy instruction, specifically when engaging second language learners.[188][note 7]

A visual arts approach to literary instruction for migrant populations can also be blended with core curricular goals.

Integrating Common Core content into language training with MELL

A pressing challenge in education is the instruction of literacy to Migrant English Language Learners (MELLs), a term coined by Pellerine and not limited to English. "Due to the growing share of immigrants in many Western societies, there has been increasing concern for the degree to which immigrants acquire language that is spoken in the destination country".[189]

While learning literacy in one's first language can be challenging, the challenge becomes even more cognitively demanding when learning a second language. The task can become considerably more difficult when confronted by a migrant who has made a sudden change by immigrating and requires the second language immediately upon arrival. In most instances, a migrant will not have the opportunity to start school again in grade one and acquire the language naturally; instead, alternative interventions need to take place. In these cases, a visual arts approach can be helpful—taking a photo, sketching an event, or painting an image have been seen as effective ways to understand the intention of the learner as they can incorporate orality.[190][191]

Including orality

In the above image, from left to right:[192]

An image taken during a phototour of the participant's village. This image is of the individual at her shop with one of the products she sells: dung for cooking fuel. The image helps the instructor understand the realities of the participant's daily life, and most importantly, it gives the participant the opportunity to determine what is important to them.

An image of a student explaining to a group and elaborating on a drawn series of milestones in her life. This student had a very basic ability and, with some help, was able to write brief captions under the images. While she speaks, her story is recorded to help her understand and develop it in the new language.

A painting created by composite in a graphics editing program (e.g., Photoshop). With further training, participants can learn how to blend images, thereby introducing elements of digital literacy that are beneficial in many spheres of life in the 21st century.

In a study based in Ethiopia, participants were asked to rate their preference for activity on a scale of 1–10. The survey prompt was: "On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate photography as an activity that helped you get inspiration for your writing activities (think of enjoyment and usefulness)?" The activities used as primers for writing were rated, in order of preference:[citation needed]

Photography: 97%

Oral presentations/sharing your art: 92%

Process painting: 84%

Painting: 82%

Sketching: 78%

Gluing activities: 72%

Stencil/tracing activities: 60%

More research would need to be conducted to confirm such trends.

Authorship programs have been successful in bringing student work together in book format as part of the program's culmination. These books can be used to document learning, and more importantly, to reinforce language and content goals.[citation needed]

Sample covers of completed authorship-created books

The collection of such writings into books can trigger both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Feedback by students involved in such initiatives indicates that the healthy pressures of collective and collaborative work were beneficial.[citation needed]

Importance[edit]

Teaching people to read and write, the traditional meaning of literacy, is a very complex task in one's native language; to do this in a second language becomes increasingly complex. In some countries, there are legal and policy-driven boundaries that prohibit a migrant's naturalization and acquisition of citizenship based on language proficiency. For example, despite debate, language tests can be required years after settling in Canada.[193] Similar policies exist globally, including in New Zealand,[194] Australia,[195] and the US.[196]

The EL Gazette reviewed Pellerine's work with migrant English language learners and commented:

Handing English language learners a sponge and some paint and asking them to 'paint what comes' might not appear like a promising teaching method for a foreign language. But Canadian EL instructor and photographer Steve Pellerine has found that the technique, along with others based around the visual arts, has helped some of his most challenging groups to learn.[197]

Visual arts have been viewed as an effective way to approach literacy instruction—the art being a primer for subsequent literacy tasks within a scaffolded curricular design, such as Teaching for Understanding (TfU) or Understanding by Design (UbD).[citation needed]

By continent[edit]

LITERACY | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary

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Meaning of literacy in English

literacynoun [ U ] uk

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/ˈlɪt.ər.ə.si/ us

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/ˈlɪt̬.ɚ.ə.si/

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C1 the ability to read and write: Far more resources are needed to improve adult literacy. The country has a literacy rate of almost 98%.

knowledge of a particular subject, or a particular type of knowledge: Computer literacy is becoming as essential as the ability to drive a car.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Reading

cross-refer

deconstruct

deconstruction

dip

dip into something

flick through something

have your nose in a book idiom

leaf

lip-read

nose

perusal

pore over something

put something/someone down

read someone's lips idiom

read something out

riffle

speed reading

thumb through something

tsundoku

wade through something

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You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Knowledge and awareness

(Definition of literacy from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

literacy | American Dictionary

literacynoun [ U ] us

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the ability to read and write: She was actively involved in programs to increase adult literacy.

Literacy is also a basic skill or knowledge of a subject: computer literacy

(Definition of literacy from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

literacy | Business English

literacynoun [ U ] uk

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the ability to read and write: literacy levels/rates/skills At 62%, India's adult literacy rate is a reminder of the country's status as a developing nation. A new deal to improve literacy among the unemployed has been launched.

knowledge of a particular subject, or a particular type of knowledge: economic/financial literacy Tax cuts for the electronic filing of tax and VAT returns will also encourage computer literacy.

(Definition of literacy from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of literacy

literacy

Since the 1980s, my research has focused upon novice academic literacies and, more specifically, on the relationships between academic literacies and genre theory.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The book stresses the fluidity inherent in all literacies and ways in which divergent images/videogames position us to "read" these "texts" in different ways.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

A common, underlying theme across these readings is the pluralistic and transformative powers of critical literacies.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Specifically, because our realities are so very different, if not incommensurable, by default critical literacies must always be provisional, emerging from new contexts of struggle.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The author challenges researchers and teachers to reenvision viable classroom ecologies that provide access to school languages and literacies.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

As they are spread through schools, schooled literacies are very much geared at sorting pupils.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Listening to learning outside the classroom: student teachers study playground literacies.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

His research interests include new literacies and classroom music learning, popular culture and education, and ethnomusicology and music education.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

His research interests include academic literacies, genre-based language teaching, and thesis and dissertation writing.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

We examine these types of tensions and their implications for critical literacies in the following section on globalization.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Such work can provide important new data about the ways in which contexts and identities expand through the mediation of new literacies.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Paradigmatic assumptions of these sorts shape how critical literacies unfold.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In a postmodern spirit, the editors emphasize the multiplicity of literacies and the value of students' own ways of knowing.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In this respect, the preferred goal of critical literacies is to create space for the agency of others and not to determine if or how that agency will be realized.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Supporting a course in new literacies and skills for linguistics with a virtual learning environment.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

See all examples of literacy

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

Collocations with literacy

literacy

These are words often used in combination with literacy.Click on a collocation to see more examples of it.

adult literacyReconceptualizing adult literacy education and the digitial divide.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

basic literacyThe primary material aimed at basic literacy, while the other two packages were concerned more generally with 'knowledge about language ' (including grammar).

From the Cambridge English Corpus

critical literacyThe same absence of detail is evident in the consideration of aspects of critical literacy in practice (54-57).

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What is the pronunciation of literacy?

Translations of literacy

in Chinese (Traditional)

識字，讀寫能力, （某領域或某方面的）知識，能力…

in Chinese (Simplified)

识字，读写能力, （某领域或某方面的）知识，能力…

in Spanish

alfabetismo, dominio, alfabetización [feminine…

in Portuguese

alfabetização, conhecimento, domínio…

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in Turkish

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साक्षरता, लिहिता वाचता येणे, विशिष्ट विषयाचे वा विशिष्ट प्रकारचे ज्ञान…

okur yazarlık…

fait [masculine] de savoir lire et écrire, alphabétisme (noun), alphabétisation (adjective)…

識字能力（しきじのうりょく）…

alfabetisme…

படிக்க மற்றும் எழுதும் திறன், ஒரு குறிப்பிட்ட விஷயத்தைப் பற்றிய அறிவு, அல்லது ஒரு குறிப்பிட்ட வகை அறிவு…

साक्षरता, किसी खास विषय या खास तरह की जानकारी…

સાક્ષરતા, ચોક્કસ વિષયનું જ્ઞાન…

det at kunne læse og skrive…

läs- och skriv- kunnighet…

celik huruf…

die Fähigkeit, zu Lesen und zu Schreiben, die Bildung…

lese- og skriveferdigheter [masculine, plural], det å kunne lese og skrive…

خواندگی, تعلیم, کسی خاص موضوع یا کسی خاص طرح کا علم…

письменність, грамотність…

грамотность…

అక్షరాస్యత / చదవగల, రాయగల సామర్థ్యం, ఒక నిర్దిష్ట విషయం గురించిన జ్ఞానం లేదా నిర్దిష్ట రకమైన జ్ఞానం…

স্বাক্ষরতা…

gramotnost…

melek huruf…

ความสามารถในการอ่านและเขียน…

sự biết chữ…

umiejętność czytania i pisania, umiejętność pisania i czytania…

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Defining and Understanding Literacy

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Richard Nordquist

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Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia

M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester

B.A., English, State University of New York

Dr. Richard Nordquist is professor emeritus of rhetoric and English at Georgia Southern University and the author of several university-level grammar and composition textbooks.

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Updated on April 20, 2019

Simply put, literacy is the ability to read and write in at least one language. So just about everyone in developed countries is literate in the basic sense. In her book "The Literacy Wars," Ilana Snyder argues that "there is no single, correct view of literacy that would be universally accepted. There are a number of competing definitions, and these definitions are continually changing and evolving." The following quotes raise several issues about literacy, its necessity, its power, and its evolution.

Observations on Literacy

"Literacy is a human right, a tool of personal empowerment and a means for social and human development. Educational opportunities depend on literacy. Literacy is at the heart of basic education for all and essential for eradicating poverty, reducing child mortality, curbing population growth, achieving gender equality and ensuring sustainable development, peace, and democracy.", "Why Is Literacy Important?" UNESCO, 2010

"The notion of basic literacy is used for the initial learning of reading and writing, which adults who have never been to school need to go through. The term functional literacy is kept for the level of reading and writing that adults are thought to need in a modern complex society. Use of the term underlines the idea that although people may have basic levels of literacy, they need a different level to operate in their day-to-day lives.", David Barton, "Literacy: An Introduction to the Ecology of Written Language," 2006

"To acquire literacy is more than to psychologically and mechanically dominate reading and writing techniques. It is to dominate those techniques in terms of consciousness; to understand what one reads and to write what one understands: It is to communicate graphically. Acquiring literacy does not involve memorizing sentences, words or syllables, lifeless objects unconnected to an existential universe, but rather an attitude of creation and re-creation, a self-transformation producing a stance of intervention in one's context.", Paulo Freire, "Education for Critical Consciousness," 1974

"There is hardly an oral culture or a predominantly oral culture left in the world today that is not somehow aware of the vast complex of powers forever inaccessible without literacy.", Walter J. Ong, "Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word," 1982

Women and Literacy

Joan Acocella, in a New Yorker review of the book "The Woman Reader" by Belinda Jack, had this to say in 2012:

"In the history of women, there is probably no matter, apart from contraception, more important than literacy. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, access to the power required knowledge of the world. This could not be gained without reading and writing, skills that were granted to men long before they were to women. Deprived of them, women were condemned to stay home with the livestock or, if they were lucky, with the servants. (Alternatively, they may have been the servants.) Compared with men, they led mediocre lives. In thinking about wisdom, it helps to read about wisdom, about Solomon or Socrates or whomever. Likewise, goodness and happiness and love. To decide whether you have them or want to make the sacrifices necessary to get them, it is useful to read about them. Without such introspection, women seemed stupid; therefore, they were considered unfit for education; therefore, they weren’t given an education; therefore they seemed stupid."

A New Definition?

Barry Sanders, in "A Is for Ox: Violence, Electronic Media, and the Silencing of the Written Word" (1994), makes a case for a changing definition of literacy in the technological age.

"We need a radical redefinition of literacy, one that includes a recognition of the vital importance that morality plays in shaping literacy. We need a radical redefinition of what it means for society to have all the appearances of literacy and yet to abandon the book as its dominant metaphor. We must understand what happens when the computer replaces the book as the prime metaphor for visualizing the self.""It is important to remember that those who celebrate the intensities and discontinuities of postmodern electronic culture in print write from an advanced literacy. That literacy provides them the profound power of choosing their ideational repertoire. No such choice or power is available to the illiterate young person subjected to an endless stream of electronic images."

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Nordquist, Richard. "Defining and Understanding Literacy." ThoughtCo, Aug. 27, 2020, thoughtco.com/what-is-literacy-1691249.

Nordquist, Richard. (2020, August 27). Defining and Understanding Literacy. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-literacy-1691249

Nordquist, Richard. "Defining and Understanding Literacy." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-literacy-1691249 (accessed March 12, 2024).

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DefinitionLiteracy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in their community and wider society. Generally, literacy also encompasses numeracy, the ability to make simple arithmetic calculations. The concept of literacy can be distinguished from measures to quantify it, such as the literacy rate and functional literacy.Source definitionUNESCO Institute for Statistics

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