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Definition: Literacy |
LiteracyNoun1. The ability to read and write. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "literacy" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1903. (references) |
Synonym: LiteracySynonym: Illiteracy. (additional references) |
| Antonym: illiteracy (n). (additional references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Traditionally, literacy refers to the ability to read and write (usually the former) in a given (usually first) language. In modern context, it means reading and writing in a level that is adequate for written communication and generally a level that enables one to successfully function in a society.
The standards for what level constitutes "literacy" vary between societies. Other skills such as computer skills or basic math skills may also be included.
The history of literacy is several thousand years old, but before the industrial revolution finally made cheap paper and cheap books available to all classes in industrialized countries, about a century and a half ago, literacy existed only in a tiny minority of the world's different societies.
Many policy analysts consider literacy rates a crucial measure of a region's human capital. This claim is made on the grounds that literate people can be trained less expensively than illiterates. Literacy also increases job opportunities and access to higher education. In Kerala, India, for example, female and child mortality rates declined dramatically in the 1960s, when girls schooled to literacy in the education reforms after 1948 began to raise families.
Some of the most effective methods of teaching literacy involve direct instruction of simplified phonetic systems.
In English, for example, the Distar system developed by the RAND Corporation has been adapted into a simple literacy instruction manual ("Teach your Child to Read in 100 Lessons") that permits a literate adult to teach an illiterate child by simply reading and following instructions. All of the complex instructional lesson design, skill building and optimal repetition and review have been "canned" in the book's instructional design.
A computer program is even available that uses a similar system, but directly pronounces and tests the lessons, eliminating the need for a literate adult.
Comprehensive phonic programs exist, based on such systems as the Orton phonogram system, whcih was originated to teach brain-damaged veterans to read again. Using the 73 Orton phonograms and 14 spelling rules, 50,000 English words can be accurately pronounced and spelled with only 23 exceptional words. Although quite hard to learn, and far more exacting to teach, such systems provide students with powerful basic language skills.
A key technique in many comprehensive phonic systems is a spelling copybook, a sort of personal dictionary in which a student keeps a personal alphabetized list of words for review. The copybook usually shows how the word is pronounced, accented and syllabized, and how standard spelling rules are invoked to determine its conventional spelling.
Several learning styles challenge conventional literacy programs. Visual and auditory learners often do well with conventional curricula. Kinesthetic learners often do well to use a copybook, less classroom practice and dictation, and more pencil practice, with a collection of magnetized letters and a steelboard to manipulate word-roots, prefixes and suffixes.
The degree of comprehension of course varies from person to person, and so the conditions for a certain state of "literacy" differ depending on who is defining the standard. For one attempt to define a standard of literacy, see [1].
It is well-established that children become able to "blend sounds" at different ages. Thus phonetic systems often cannot be applied by very young children.
Experts differ in their approach to this issue, some advocating a delayed, but more rapid acquisition of reading by means of phonetics, while others advocate early acquisition of a basic vocabulary through a "see and say" method.
A secondary advantage of phonetics is that it improves readers' spelling and writing abilities. See and say methods are said to increase the word acquisiton rate and reading speed of many students.
While young children often require several hundred hours of instruction, spread over much of a year, motivated adults using a good instructional method can often acquire basic literacy with forty or fewer hours of instruction.
"According to UNESCO statistics, almost a billion illiterates remain as we approach the year 2000." [1]
The reasons why literacy is falling may be due to:
Teaching Literacy
Literacy Readiness
Lack of Literacy
External Links
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Literacy."
Crosswords: Literacy |
| English words defined with "literacy": establish ♦ found ♦ help ♦ launch ♦ reading program ♦ set up ♦ zealously. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "literacy": computer literacy ♦ literacy and numeracy. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | I used to be a sheriff until I passed my literacy test. (Harper; writing credit: William Goldman; Ross Macdonald) | |
Clever | Arkansas: Literacy Ain't Everything (references; author: unknown) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Periodicals | |
Theater & Movies | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | We recommend the development of methods to make hygienic intervention more effective to larger segments of our society, including those with low literacy skills. (references) | |
A broad educational effort is essential to create a level of genetic literacy in the population and among health care professionals that will allow individuals to utilize genetic and other information in making important life decisions. (references) | ||
Business | Tests were performed for literacy, numeracy and life skills tasks. (references) | |
The Western Cape and Gauteng have the highest literacy rates among persons aged 15 years and above. (references) | ||
On individuals, BMI-T said primary factors influencing commercial activity were income and Internet literacy. (references) | ||
Children | Mali | Literacy rates among girls remained significantly lower than for boys. (references) |
Afghanistan | Female literacy is approximately 4 percent, compared with 30 percent for males. (references) | |
Maldives | Nevertheless, women enjoy a higher literacy rate (98 percent) than men (96 percent). (references) | |
Civil Liberties | Burundi | Due to widespread poverty and limited literacy, radio remained the most important medium of public information. (references) |
Niger | Since literacy and personal incomes are both very low, radio is the most important medium of public communication. (references) | |
Congo | Due to limited literacy and the high costs of newspapers and television, radio remained the most important medium of public information. (references) | |
Economic History | Uganda | Literacy (1993)--62%. (references) |
Botswana | Education: Adult literacy --68.9%. (references) | |
Argentina | Argentina's computer literacy is high. (references) | |
Human Rights | Bahamas | Modern training facilities are equipped with new computers, and the prison also offers some educational and literacy programs for prisoners. (references) |
Indigenous People | Panama | The Constitution protects the ethnic identity and native languages of indigenous people and requires the Government to provide bilingual literacy programs in indigenous communities. (references) |
Bolivia | The indigenous majority generally remains at the low end of the socioeconomic scale, and faces severe disadvantages in health, life expectancy, education, income, literacy, and employment. (references) | |
Minorities | Bolivia | Afro-Bolivians generally remain at the low end of the socioeconomic scale, and face severe disadvantages in health, life expectancy, education, income, literacy, and employment. (references) |
Political Economy | Niger | Drought, deforestation, soil degradation, and exceedingly low literacy are problems. (references) |
Burkina Faso | The increase in the incidence of HIV/AIDS has eroded gains in life expectancy; however, literacy and schooling continued to register modest advances. (references) | |
Travel | Philippines | They are also among the most educated, with a literacy rate of 85 percent. (references) |
Women | Malawi | Male literacy in the same age group is approximately 45 percent. (references) |
Malawi | The literacy rate among women between the ages of 15 and 45 is less than 37 percent. (references) | |
Worker Rights | Mauritania | The Government focuses on education, literacy, and agrarian reform as the main means to eradicate the vestiges of slavery and address its consequences. (references) |
Benin | To prevent trafficking, the Government is working with international organizations to increase literacy rates, diversify the economy, and improve health care. (references) | |
Pakistan | The Bunyad Literacy Community Council and Sudhaar also run schools focusing on children who work in the soccer ball and carpet industries; their programs aim to transition children out of working and into mainstream schooling. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Literacy" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 99.45% of the time. "Literacy" is used about 905 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 99.45% | 900 | 7,945 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.22% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Noun (common) | 0.22% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Unclassified Items | 0.11% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 905 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "literacy": computer literacy ♦ literacy and numeracy ♦ literacy rate. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "literacy": semi-literacy. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "literacy"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | shkrim e këndim. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | معرفة القراءة والكتابة. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | грамотност, писменост (script, writing). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 识字. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | gramotnost. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | læsning og matematik (literacy and numeracy), undervise i at læse og skrive (to teach literacy). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | alfabetisering. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Farsi | سوادخواندن ونوشتن , سواد (Transcript), باسوادی . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | lukutaito (ability to read). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | fait de savoir lire et écrire, degré d'alphabétisation, alphabétisation. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | Bildung (acquisition, civilization, culture, education, establishment, fashioning, formation, formations, forming, nurture, setting up, shaping, structure). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | γνώση γραφήσ, γνώση ανάγνωσησ. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | ידיעת קרוא וכתוב. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | olvasottság (reading), mûveltség (eruditely, erudition), írni-olvasni tudás. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | melek huruf, kemelekan, kecelikhurufan. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | il saper leggere e scrivere, alfabetizzazione. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 識字 , リチウム爆弾 (car with 1000cc engine, lip, lip cream, lip service, lipreading, lipstick, literal, literary, literature, lithium bomb, lithograph, Lithuania, litmus, litre, redisplay, reduce, rich, ridge, ripple, rocking motion, small-scale finance). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | リテラシー , しきじ (ceremonial address, program of a ceremony). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Korean | 문학 (literary, literature). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | lettyraght (belles-lettres, letters, literature). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Norwegian | leseferdighet, skriveferdighet. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | iteracylay litro (liter, litre, litter), instrução (coaching, directions, discipline, education, guideline, information, instruction, learning, lesson, notice, schooling, teaching, training, tuition), grau de instrução. (various references) instrucţie (education, examination, instruction, practice, schooling, teaching, training, tuition), ştiinţã de carte (scholarship). (various references) грамотность. (various references) pismenost. (various references) alfabetización. (various references) lässkrivkunnighet. (various references) ความสามารถในการอ่านและเขียน. (various references) yazın yeteneği, okur yazarlık, edebi kültür. (various references) sowat. (various references) грамотність (clerkship), письменність. (various references) sự biết viết, sự biết đọc. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Derivations | |
Words ending with "literacy": aliteracy, illiteracy, subliteracy. (additional references) | |
| |
"Literacy" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: liteary, litera, literagy, literaly, literas, literay. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "literacy" (pronounced li"terusē) |
| 7 | l i" t er u s ē | illiteracy. |
| 4 | -er u s ē | accuracy, confederacy, degeneracy, inaccuracy. |
| 3 | -u s ē | adequacy, advocacy, Argosy, aristocracy, autocracy, bureaucracy, candidacy, celibacy, conspiracy, courtesy, delicacy, democracy, diplomacy, ecstasy, embassy, fallacy, fantasy, Geodesy, heresy, hypocrisy, idiocy, illegitimacy, immediacy, inadequacy, intimacy, intricacy, jealousy, legacy, legitimacy, leprosy, lunacy, meritocracy, obstinacy, Odyssey, papacy, pharmacy, piracy, pleurisy, policy, primacy, privacy, prophecy, secrecy, supremacy, surrogacy, theocracy. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-e-i-l-r-t-y" | |
-1 letter: article, clarity, clayier, irately, reality, recital, tearily, treacly. | |
-2 letters: acetyl, aerily, artily, atelic, cartel, citral, claret, eclair, elytra, lacier, lyrate, racily, realty, rectal, relict, retail, retial, rictal, tailer. | |
-3 letters: alert, alter, areic, ariel, artel, caret, carle, carte, cater, ceria, citer, clary, clear, cleat, crate, early, eclat, erica, ileac, irate, lacer, lacey, laity, later. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-e-i-l-r-t-y" | |
+1 letter: aliteracy, certainly. | |
+2 letters: centrality, creatively, creditably, crystalize, curatively, erotically, hysterical, illiteracy, lectionary, metrically, reactively, secularity, sterically, vertically. | |
+3 letters: anticruelty, bacterially, calorimetry, cellularity, centrically, certifiably, circinately, colinearity, crystalized, crystalizes, crystalline, crystallise, crystallite, crystallize, eristically, erratically, explicatory, factorylike, glycerinate, heretically, intercalary, intricately, lucratively, maledictory, peculiarity, predictably, specularity, subliteracy, symmetrical, thermically, uncertainly, valedictory, vectorially, verticality, viceroyalty. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)4C 69 74 65 72 61 63 79 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references).-.. .. - . .-. .- -.-. -.--. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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| Amazon.com BOOKS: Search for: "literacy" |
