Literacy
Literacy is the ability to read and write. Its forms and uses are shaped by language, education, social practices, and access to texts.
Phonological awareness: The ability to notice and work with the sound structure of spoken language. Awareness of speech sounds helps children connect spoken words with written letters.
Academic literacy: The reading, writing, and communication practices used in academic settings. Schools and universities expect specialized ways of interpreting and producing texts.
Cuneiform: A writing system made by pressing wedge-shaped marks into clay, developed in ancient Mesopotamia. Its early use shows literacy emerging alongside record keeping and administration.
Universal primary education: The goal of ensuring that all children can complete free, compulsory primary schooling. Literacy is a central outcome and stated aim of primary education.
Illiteracy: The inability to read and write, or a severe lack of those skills. It names the condition literacy efforts seek to address.
Phonics: A method of teaching reading through relationships between letters and speech sounds. Letter–sound correspondences help readers decode unfamiliar words.
Digital literacy: The ability to use digital technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information. Digital environments extend literacy beyond printed texts.
Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs: A writing system using pictorial signs, consonant signs, and other symbols in ancient Egypt. Its specialist scribes illustrate how literacy could be restricted to trained groups.
Adult education: Organized learning opportunities designed for people beyond conventional school age. Adult programs address literacy needs left unmet by childhood schooling.
Orality: Communication and cultural practices based primarily on spoken language rather than writing. Oral knowledge can thrive without literacy and should not be treated as its absence alone.