Value Of Literacy Today

Literacy personally, is not just the basic understanding of reading and writing. It is the ability to be knowledgeable in a subject or concept, and be able to understand it. It is being able to apply the things that you have learned into real life situations. It’s analyzing something and being able to interpret it into something more meaningful. It is more than just books and readings, but everyday things that people might encounter. The value that literacy holds is immense. It can be transferred throughout various cultures, though there are some instances where it can act as a barrier. Literacy not only allows day to say communication to take place, it enables individuals to analyze and focus on things they might not have before. It connects many …show more content…
Literacy today is more complex then taking a test to get a set number of questions correct to prove that a person is literate. Author of Drafting U.S. Literacy, Deborah Brandt, points out that during World War 1, soldiers simply had to have a "fourth grade education" at the very least to be considered or they would have to take a test to get in (486). This exemplifies how the government wasn’t too concerned with how smart the individuals they were letting in were. They needed soldiers for the war and they just wanted some sort of documentation to show that they were literate enough, to some degree, to serve their country. Today literacy functions much differently then how it did during World War 1. Today it can be seen and also mean a multitude of things. It is not just taking a test and getting a certain number of questions right or a certain score, or being able to read a paragraph at a certain grade level. Someone can be literate in sports or cars, and that just means that not only are they capable of knowing things about that particular subject but that they are also knowledgeable about it as well. In addition to it not only being just reading and