The Importance of Literacy

byPeterVX

489 followers

7 years ago

There is a saying that, "Experience is the best teacher." That is true, up to a point; what we have experienced ourselves we are less likely to forget than what we have been told by others.

The trouble is that the amount of knowledge we can gain through experience is very limited. If we can supplement our experiences with the experiences and knowledge of others, we can vastly increase our knowledge, skills and insights. That's how we expand.

I firmly believe that, aside from the skills we learned as toddlers, the most important skill to acquire is the skill of literacy, by which is meant the ability to read and write. You read to gain knowledge; you write to pass knowledge on to others. The ability to read - and understand what we read - comes first.

There have been many complaints about our educational system, about how the public schools fail to teach our kids properly. And, in many cases, there is much truth in that. Not many people read any more. They watch TV instead. That's a pity, because TV does not teach us much worth knowing. The result is a general dumbing down of the population.

So, how do we rise above this problem of poor literacy? Here is what I found very successful. It starts with reading worthwhile books and whenever we run across a word we do not fully understand, we look it up in a good dictionary and use the word in sentences that illustrate its meaning until we "own" its meaning. Then we re-read the section where the word occurred and make sure we fully understand that before reading on.

In looking up the definition of a word, we may find words in the definition that we don't fully understand either, so we can get into "word chains." This can be a lot of work at first, but it becomes easier and faster after a while. And it is amazing how much clearer everything you read becomes.

Next comes the ability to write. That takes a knowledge of grammar and spelling, but most of all it takes practice. To become a good writer you have to write and write often. And of course you should have something to write about.

That's my two cents worth for the day. I look forward to your comments.