{"id":886,"date":"2013-11-19T14:58:39","date_gmt":"2013-11-19T01:58:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=886"},"modified":"2013-11-19T14:58:39","modified_gmt":"2013-11-19T01:58:39","slug":"the-everyday-importance-of-literacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=886","title":{"rendered":"The everyday importance of literacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ABC\"<\/a>It was early November \u2013 just before or just after Guy Fawkes Night.\u00a0 I can\u2019t remember which.\u00a0 I was five years old; soon to be six.<\/p>\n

Our teacher began the day by reading us a story, and then called for someone to give a \u2018morning talk\u2019.\u00a0 Anthony\u2019s hand shot up.\u00a0 \u2018Me, Miss, me.\u2019 Miss favoured Anthony with selection and, in a flash, he was up in front of the class and ready to start his oration.<\/p>\n

\u2018Me had a Jumping Jack, me let it off, and it jumped on me yud,\u2019 Anthony declared with all the confidence of a seasoned game show host.<\/p>\n

The class laughed and applauded, and Anthony, beaming proudly, returned to his seat.<\/p>\n

The teacher commended Anthony on his spirited delivery and then, very gently, suggested that it might have been even better had he said: I<\/i> had a Jumping Jack, I<\/i> let it off, and it jumped on my head<\/i>.\u00a0 And that, as I recall, was the end of our English lesson for the day.<\/p>\n

A year later, now six going on seven, I moved to a new school.\u00a0 And almost the first thing that I was asked to do was to read aloud from a book.\u00a0 One small problem.\u00a0 At my previous school, we had talked and we had listened.\u00a0 We had mastered the basics of addition and subtraction, and division and multiplication \u2013 and a few other things besides.\u00a0 But no one had taught us six-year-olds to read.\u00a0 Or to write.\u00a0 I was, by all normal criteria, illiterate.<\/p>\n

Luckily, I seem to have been a fast learner and, a year later, I topped the class in English.\u00a0 As far as I can recall, I remained in the top two or three in every English class until the day that I finally left the education system and began to earn my living primarily as a writer.<\/p>\n

To anyone who is not illiterate \u2013 and if you are reading this, that probably includes you \u2013 the difficulties that come with even partial illiteracy are sometimes hard to comprehend.\u00a0 Despite recent developments, being a fluent reader and writer still underpins most education, whether in primary school, secondary school, university, and even in life beyond the hallowed halls.\u00a0 And, in many ways, the Internet has only made this more so.<\/p>\n

According to a friend of a friend (who seems to know about such things), most people in prison are, to some extent, illiterate.\u00a0 He believes that their illiteracy is at least part of the reason that they end up on the wrong side of the law.\u00a0 Not being able to read and write makes it so much harder to earn a decent income.\u00a0 And unemployment or underemployment can make a life of crime seem like an attractive option.\u00a0 For a while, anyway.<\/p>\n

Thirty years ago, give or take, I had lunch with a very successful young filmmaker who was breathing a sigh of relief because, thanks to calculators, spellcheck, and grammar check, his then seven-year-old daughter wouldn\u2019t have to worry about learning maths or English.\u00a0 She could focus on \u2018more interesting subjects\u2019.\u00a0 Sometimes, in the middle of a wakeful night, I wonder how things turned out for her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was early November \u2013 just before or just after Guy Fawkes Night.\u00a0 I can\u2019t remember which.\u00a0 I was five years old; soon to be six. Our teacher began the day by reading us a story, and then called for … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":887,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886\/revisions\/887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}