What do literacy mean

Despite the complexity, literacy is the global metric we use to assess the health and competence of communities. High literacy rates have been found to correlate to everything from better access to economic opportunity, to better nutrition, to environmental sustainability.

This focus on literacy as a tool for meaningful engagement with society makes sense. As our population expands and technology breaks down ever more barriers between us, the ability to communicate and interact with those around us becomes even more important. In our consideration of literacy, however, it is impossible to ignore the myriad ways that imperialist and colonialist systems shape gender and regional disparities in access.

Many historians propose that written language emerged at least in part as a tool for maintaining power. Colonialism, imperialism, and the sprawl of anglo-european, male-centered ideology from the 15th Century onward have created global power structures that still dominate today. Only relatively recently has literacy been expected or even possible for the vast majority of society.

For centuries, people have lived, laughed, traded, communicated, and survived without being able to read and write. Even today, though illiteracy can be a literal death sentence studies have shown that female literacy rates can actually be a predictor of child mortality rates Saurabh et al , it is most certainly a metaphorical one wherein the experiences had and contributions made by those so afflicted are devalued both by design and by conceit.

So what does this mean for our definition of literacy? At its simplest, literacy is the way that we interact with the world around us, how we shape it and are shaped by it. It is how we communicate with others via reading and writing, but also by speaking, listening, and creating. In my work as the director of program innovation for LitWorld, I get to interact with young people all over the world and examine the idea of literacy from many different angles.

Resources for literacy education differ dramatically from one place to another, as do metric taking procedures and general best practices. Read more. A boy born in Stockton Town Centre an area with serious literacy challenges has a life expectancy Only 1 in 2 In , just over one-third This is the lowest level of writing enjoyment we have recorded since In a technological society, the concept of literacy is expanding to include the media and electronic text, in addition to alphabetic and number systems.

These abilities vary in different social and cultural contexts according to need and demand. The primary sense of literacy still represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from a critical interpretation of the written or printed text.

Key to all literacy is reading development, a progression of skills that begins with the ability to understand spoken words and decode written words, and culminates in the deep understanding of text. Reading development involves a range of complex language underpinnings including awareness of speech sounds, spelling patterns, word meaning, grammar and patterns of word formation, all of which provide a necessary platform for reading fluency and comprehension.

Once these skills are acquired the reader can attain full language literacy, which includes the abilities to approach printed material with 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.

The natural human ability and skills to intuitively feel, know, understand and use the brain and mind to read and write using language. Literacy is important for us human beings to learn, grow and evolve on planet earth as it effects each facet of our lives. Health literacy is a big issue in the older African American population because of how people were educated when they were young, my maternal grandmother, she had a third-grade education. My grandfather, he made it to the fifth grade.

For many people, understanding the information that's put out, especially when it changes so often and people don't really understand why, is a challenge. When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did?

He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? Even though Fidel Castro did it? Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, has refused to back down from his comments arguing during Tuesday nights debate in South Carolina that former President Barack Obama had once praised the Castro regimes progress on education and healthcare.

The Vermont lawmaker said there is a reticence among Americans to look back at Washingtons own history of overthrowing foreign governments and supporting dictators. It might be a good idea to be honest of American foreign policy and that is the American government helped overthrow governments in Chile, Nicaragua, and Iran, Sanders said in reference to U. Sanders reference to Obama did not sit well with former Vice President Joe Biden, who claimed that his boss never embraced an authoritarian regime, while former South Bend, Ind.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg lamented that the candidates were debating about Cold War-era policies. This is not about what coups happened in the s and 80s, this is about the future, Buttigieg said. Sanders comments about the Castro regime could play a large role in how he fares in Floridas March 17 primary. Sanders socialist identification and his willingness to praise leftist regimes have given his Democratic opponents ammunition to question his electability in a state with a large Cuban American population that remains fiercely skeptical of leftist governments.

In Florida, where Hispanics account for nearly one in every five voters, that skepticism could present a major hurdle for Sanders in the states primary, and for Democrats hoping to win Floridas 29 electoral votes in November. According to an Associated Press survey, about a third of Cuban American midterm voters identified as Democrats.

However, Democrats hardly have a lock on that vote in battleground Florida, particularly among the nearly 2 million Floridians of Cuban, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan origin. While more than two-fifths of Florida Latinos voters favored DeSantis overall, a clear majority of Cuban American voters 57 percent cast their support for the Republican. Critics say Sanders needs to more strongly disavow Cuba and other authoritarian regimes.

Its not just about Cuban American voters, its Hispanic voters as well, many of whom would never consider voting for an avowed socialist If you don't develop that sense of literacy and attachment and connection to the Earth early on, it's really, really difficult later on, it's' What can I get out of the Earth, and how the Earth can serve my purpose?

Ideal state is not the one with alone highest literacy , best infrastructure and cleanliness all around but with consistency maintaining the least unemployment rate and the maximum business opportunities.