Importance of Literacy
“What does literacy mean to you?” This question posed in a class brought out numerous responses, but left me with a particular idea about literacy.
Literacy, in my opinion, is the ability to read, comprehend, and ultimately communicate one’s understanding of a subject and/or propose a new idea that has grown from that understanding. Literacy is the foundation for new ideas. The lessons from yesterday become the guiding light for future possibilities. Different ideas communicated in writing over the centuries become the source of a fresh point of view leading to interesting discoveries and inventions. I see communication as the primary goal of literacy.
Another significant goal of literacy is the ability to read with a critical eye. To read with discretion is a significant result of literacy. Being in a media saturate environment, it is vital for young people and adults to be able to discern fact from fiction. One cannot assume that one is being told the truth. There are layers to all things and subtleties that we may miss if we don’t read between the lines. The combination of comprehension and communication are the key elements to literacy. Recognizing that every written work is to some extent subjective work on part of the writer, that writing is often geared towards selling an idea and does not always come with the warning of discretion, and that there are multiple meanings to a phrase or word are all important lessons on the path towards literacy.
Being a literate person has given me the ability to read, think, examine, analyze, debate, and evaluate ideas, which provide me the tools for living in a difficult world. I can make satisfying decisions because I have the ability to evaluate my choices and choose that which best suits my situation.
Having been brought up in a country with 22 official languages and scores of dialects, I recognize the importance of a common language to break the barriers of communication. The English language, a remnant of four centuries of colonial rule in India, has proven to be that common tongue. It gives the Southerners, who have a staunch loyalty to their native tongues, and the Northerners, who have an intense desire to make their language the national one, a common ground to meet and talk in the interests of the whole country.
Most Indians can speak at least three to four languages. Being able to read, comprehend, and communicate in any or all languages is literacy at its best. The focus on one language becomes relevant when that language is the primary language of a country and is needed in all areas of one’s life.
One of my college courses opened my eyes to the changing nature of the English language. When studying the History of the English language, I realized that this language has undergone significant changes over the centuries. It had borrowed from various languages and even had a few invented words in it. Some changes in fact were only a few centuries old! This new information encouraged me to recognize the value of the language itself rather than its changing form.
Language was meant to communicate an idea, so if a word needed to be changed to make its meaning more precise then that was exactly what was done. If we can teach and learn a language for what it is trying to say then we can choose any way to say it, within respectable grammatical guidelines.
Effective communication and comprehension are gifts of literacy.
