What Literacy Is

Literacy is the skill everything else in schooling stands on, yet it is defined more loosely than most people assume. Reading and writing sit at its core, with numeracy and basic computer use added in many systems. It comes in levels, from a bare minimum to a level that lets a person teach others, and it is not the same thing as being educated. It also runs through daily life and, long before modern schools, sat at the center of many cultural and religious traditions.