introduction about illiteracy essay

• Search Menu
• Advance articles
• Editor's Choice
• Continuing Education
• Author Guidelines
• Submission Site
• Open Access
• Why publish with this journal?
• About Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology
• About the National Academy of Neuropsychology
• Journals Career Network
• Editorial Board
• Advertising and Corporate Services
• Self-Archiving Policy
• Dispatch Dates
• Journals on Oxford Academic
• Books on Oxford Academic

Article Contents

Introduction, conceptual issues in the study of illiteracy, the illiterate brain, neuropsychological test performance in illiterates, educational effects in test performance, brain damage and illiteracy, conclusions regarding human cognition through the study of illiteracy, conflict of interest.

• < Previous

Illiteracy: The Neuropsychology of Cognition Without Reading

• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data

Alfredo Ardila, Paulo H. Bertolucci, Lucia W. Braga, Alexander Castro-Caldas, Tedd Judd, Mary H. Kosmidis, Esmeralda Matute, Ricardo Nitrini, Feggy Ostrosky-Solis, Monica Rosselli, Illiteracy: The Neuropsychology of Cognition Without Reading, Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology , Volume 25, Issue 8, December 2010, Pages 689–712, https://doi.org/10.1093/arclin/acq079

• Permissions Icon Permissions

Illiterates represent a significant proportion of the world's population. Written language not only plays a role in mediating cognition, but also extends our knowledge of the world. Two major reasons for illiteracy can be distinguished, social (e.g., absence of schools), and personal (e.g., learning difficulties). Without written language, our knowledge of the external world is partially limited by immediate sensory information and concrete environmental conditions. Literacy is significantly associated with virtually all neuropsychological measures, even though the correlation between education and neuropsychological test scores depends on the specific test. The impact of literacy is reflected in different spheres of cognitive functioning. Learning to read reinforces and modifies certain fundamental abilities, such as verbal and visual memory, phonological awareness, and visuospatial and visuomotor skills. Functional imaging studies are now demonstrating that literacy and education influence the pathways used by the brain for problem-solving. The existence of partially specific neuronal networks as a probable consequence of the literacy level supports the hypothesis that education impacts not only the individual's day-to-day strategies, but also the brain networks. A review of the issues related to dementia in illiterates is presented, emphasizing that the association between the education level and age-related cognitive changes and education remains controversial. The analysis of the impact of illiteracy on neuropsychological test performance represents a crucial approach to understanding human cognition and its brain organization under normal and abnormal conditions.

Illiterates represent a significant proportion of the world's population. In 2000–2004, close to onefifth of the world's population was illiterate: 13% of men over 15 years of age and 23% of women ( UNESCO, 2005 ). Only a few centuries ago, reading and writing abilities were simply uncommon among the general population. Writing has only a 6,000-year history; for about 95% of our history, Homo sapiens were preliterate. We hypothesize that the acquisition of literacy skills has somehow changed the brain organization of cognition.

When studying illiteracy, the most obvious factor is the generational effect found in most countries (Table  1 ). Elders in most societies generally have a lower-educational level than their children and grandchildren. Moving back in history, the duration of education is progressively shorter on average.

World-wide illiteracy rate during 1970–2015 (projected) ( UNESCO, 2005 )

Reasons for Illiteracy

Two major classes of reasons account for illiteracy: There is a significant diversity in literacy rates among countries, from 99% (e.g., Japan, Canada, and Finland) to below 20% (e.g., Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso; International Adult Literacy Survey, 1998 ). Illiteracy due to personal reasons (learning difficulties, mental retardation, significant motor and/or sensory problems, early central nervous system pathologies, and similar conditions) likely accounts for only a small percentage of illiteracy in industrialized countries and potentially somewhat higher in poor countries with increased prevalence of early central nervous system pathologies.

Social reasons. Illiteracy may be due to the absence of schools, social disapproval of literacy, child labor, and/or poverty.

Personal reasons . For a subgroup of illiterates, learning difficulties, mental retardation, significant motor and/or sensory problems, early central nervous system pathologies, and similar conditions may account for their failure to learn to read despite adequate exposure to education.

These two main classes of reasons for illiteracy present potential confounds for research. Populations that are illiterate for social reasons are likely to differ in important ways other than literacy from the schooled, literate populations that have been the subjects of most research in cognitive psychology (prototypically U.S. college students). In general, illiterates are more likely to be of a lower socioeconomic class, they may have a variety of health problems, they may have less exposure to media of communication, and they may have limited experience with testing and, thus, distrust of researchers, among other differences. Those who are illiterate due to personal reasons are quite likely to have atypically functioning brains and cognitive systems.

One way around this problem is to compare individuals to themselves rather than to other populations. Studies of adults before and after they acquire literacy can help to control for these factors and can furthermore control, to a large extent, for the effects of development. An alternative is the sample used in a series of Portuguese studies (e.g., Reis & Castro-Caldas, 1997 ) comparing sisters, one of whom is literate and the other illiterate due to social demands placed on the eldest daughter to take on the responsibility of child care of younger siblings.

Why Is It Important to Study Illiteracy?

Different fundamental and practical reasons to study illiteracy could be distinguished ( Olson & Torrance, 2009 ). There are, however, at least four important reasons to study the neuropsychology of illiteracy: This article will focus primarily on those aspects of the study of illiteracy most pertinent to the neurocognitive theory, and clinical neuropsychology, as well as the analysis of the effects of education on neuropsychological functioning.

(Neuro)cognitive Theory. The study of illiteracy can contribute to a broader understanding of the organization of cognition.

Clinical Neuropsychology. The analysis of illiteracy can help to discern the influence of both literacy and schooling on cognitive test performance. Educational variables significantly influence performance on a diversity of neuropsychological tests ( Lezak, Howieson, & Loring, 2004 ).

Teaching Literacy. Understanding the basic brain mechanisms, subserving cognition in illiterates may contribute to improving reading and writing teaching methods for illiterate adults (e.g., Ardila, Ostrosky & Mendoza, 2000 ).

Literacy and Neuropsychological Functioning. Exploring the effects of education on literacy and neuropsychological functioning.

A fundamental conceptual presumption of neuropsychology is that the potential for basic cognitive abilities, and correspondingly, their brain mechanisms, are universal and inherent for any human being with normal brain development, regardless of the specific language spoken and one's environmental conditions. Literacy (i.e., extending spoken language to a symbolic visual representation) plays a major role in mediating cognitive processes. Luria (1931 , 1933 , 1966 , 1973 ) and Vygotsky (1934/1978) developed the concept of extracortical “organization of higher mental functions” to account for the interaction of biological and cultural factors in the development of human cognition ( Kotik-Friedgut & Ardila, 2004 ).

Historical Development of Writing and Schools

Several existing writing systems use a mixture of logograms, syllabic graphemes, phonemic graphemes, and extraphonemic markers such as capitalization, punctuation, and spatial layout. The relative emphasis on each level of representation varies from system to system. For example, the Chinese system is predominantly based on logograms with some phonemic graphemes, and extraphonetic markers, and with an alternate phonemic grapheme system available. Likewise, the above sequence is not meant to imply that any one system is more efficient or superior.

Thus, initial writing (or rather, prewriting) was a visuoconstructive ability (i.e., representing external elements visually), and only later did it become an ideomotor praxis ability (i.e., making specific learned and fixed sequences of movements with the hand to create a pictogram—a standardized representation of external elements). Still later, writing became a linguistic ability (i.e., associating the pictogram with a word, and further analyzing the word into its constituent sounds; Ardila, 2004 ). It is not surprising that three major disorders in writing can be observed as a result of brain pathology: Visuoconstructive (spatial or visuospatial agraphia: Impairment in letter, word, and text formation due to disturbed visuospatial skills), ideomotor (apraxic agraphia: Selective disorder of letter formation caused by ideomotor apraxia), and linguistic (aphasic agraphia: Writing impairment due to a language disturbance; Table  2 ). The evolution of writing has continued with the development of different technical instruments for writing: The stylus for etching in clay, feathers, the pencil, the typewriter, and the computer, as well as the development of different writing styles (e.g., handwriting, script, uppercase, lowercase) and different media (e.g., clay, papyrus, paper, computer screens). Moreover, images first and writing later allowed the possibility of representation; thus, they enable humans to think and act beyond their immediate needs ( Suddendorf & Corballis, 1997 ) and promote abstract thinking.

Representational forms of writing and corresponding cognitive skills

Defining Literacy

The definition of literacy is not definitive, nor is there an overt cut-off point; consequently, intermediate stages, such as semiliteracy and functional illiteracy, are often recognized. UNESCO ( http://www.uis.unesco.org/i_pages/indspec/TecSpe_literacy.htm ) defines adult illiteracy as the percentage of the population aged 15 years and over who cannot both read and write a comprehensible short simple statement on their everyday life. Literate does not necessarily mean schooled, even though literacy is usually highly associated with formal schooling. Reading can be transmitted from parents or tutors to children without formal school attendance ( Berry & Bennett, 1992 ; Scribner & Cole, 1981 ). Under normal conditions, reading is not learned by simple exposure, even though illiterates can develop some ability to holistically recognize a few highly frequent words, such as the name of their country, and the name of some popular commercial products ( Goldblum & Matute, 1986 ). Extremely infrequently, the ability to read can be acquired without any deliberate training (so-called “hyperlexia” usually associated with autism, Martos-Perez & Ayuda-Pascual, 2003 ; Nation, 1999 ).

The degree to which contemporary illiterates are confined to access to immediate sensory information probably also reflects the degree to which they are confined in their access to various media of information and communication and, possibly, also to formal education. Da Silva, Petersson, Faísca, Ingvar, and Reis (2004) demonstrated in Portugal that whereas literates and illiterates perform equally well on a fluency task asking for elements known through direct sensory information (“items that can be found in a supermarket”), the two groups differed on a semantic fluency task requiring naming animals. In contrast, literate people can name dinosaurs, camels, or kangaroos, evidently unknown in Portugal, but learned by reading; whereas illiterates can only name cats, dogs, horses, and other animals existing in the immediate surrounding environment and known through direct sensory experience. When the information is related to real life and direct experience, it can be considerably easier to understand. Thus, for the illiterate person, it is easier to repeat a word than to repeat a pseudoword ( Castro-Caldas, Petersson, Reis, Stone-Elander, et al., 1998 ; Kosmidis, Tsapkini, & Folia, 2006 ) and to remember objects presented to them visually than word lists ( Folia & Kosmidis, 2003 ).

The impact of literacy is reflected in all spheres of cognitive functioning. Learning to read reinforces certain fundamental abilities, such as verbal and visual memory, phonological awareness, executive functioning, and visuospatial and visuomotor skills ( Bramão et al., 2007 ; Matute, Leal, Zarabozo, Robles, & Cedillo, 2000 ; Petersson, Reis, Askelof, Castro-Caldas, & Ingvar, 2000 ; Petersson et al., 2001 ). It is not surprising that illiterate people underachieve on cognitive tests that assess these particular abilities. Furthermore, attending school also reinforces certain attitudes and values that may speed the learning process, such as the attitude that memorizing information is important or that knowledge is highly valuable; that learning is a step-by-step process moving from the simple to the more complex. It has been emphasized that schooling improves an individual's ability to explain the basis of performance in cognitive tasks ( Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, 1983 ). Whether a fundamental aim of education, or a by-product, the fact remains that all schools and schooling, regardless of their location, have a common influence on those who go through the system, namely, they train students and reinforce certain values. Hence, school may be seen as a culture unto itself, a transnational culture, and the culture of school.

School not only teaches, but also helps in developing certain strategies and attitudes that will be useful for future learning. Ciborowski (1979) observed that schooled and nonschooled children can learn a new rule equally well, but once acquired, schooled children tend to apply it more frequently in subsequent similar cases. School attendance, however, does not mean that educated people simply possess certain abilities that less-educated individuals lack. It does not mean that highly educated people have the same abilities as less-educated individuals, plus something else ( Ardila, Ostrosky & Mendoza, 2000 ). The individual with no formal education most likely has acquired knowledge, skills, and values that educated people have not. Nonetheless, formal cognitive testing evaluates those abilities in which educated people were trained; therefore, it is not surprising that they will outperform those with no formal education. In fact, one study demonstrated that once the effects of education and literacy were separated from each other, some types of language processing were enhanced by any level of literacy, whereas others continued to improve with an increasing level of education ( Kosmidis et al., 2006 ). It is noteworthy that the educational level has a substantial relationship with performance on some cognitive tests, but is not systematically related to everyday problem-solving (functional criterion of intelligence; Cornelious & Caspi, 1987 ). As a matter of fact, when functionally oriented tests, such as the Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test ( Wilson, Cockburn, & Baddeley, 1985 ) and the Fuld Object Memory Evaluation ( Fuld, 1980 ), are administered to people with low education, no significant differences with high-educated people have been observed ( Yassuda et al., 2009 ).

Although schooling represents, in some respects, a transnational culture, that culture is not uniform. Literacy and numeracy are almost universal as the major focus of primary education, but beyond that the qualities of the educational experience vary considerably. Wealthy educational systems are likely to have low student:teacher ratios, abundant teaching materials, extensive communication outside the school (Internet, field trips, visiting instructors), ancillary services (psychologists, therapists, parent services), and instruction in a wide variety of subjects and skills. Schools with less funding often lack these resources. Manly (2006) has demonstrated a relationship between school expenditure and neuropsychological test performance.

School qualities depend on much more than funding. Schools vary greatly in their formal curricula and also in unwritten characteristics. There is much variability in schools’ behavioral expectations and institutional cultures, as well as in their emphasis on bilingualism, visual-spatial skills, abstract reasoning, problem-solving, speeded performance, social skills, individualism, collectivism, moral values, and religious instruction, among other themes. These varying characteristics can reasonably be expected to have an impact on neuropsychological test performance, and this impact is not likely to be entirely linear nor unifactorial, but these relationships have not yet been systematically explored.

Contemporary illiteracy is not the same as historical preliteracy. Literacy facilitates a number of cognitive technologies that may have replaced preliterate cognitive skills. Those preliterate cognitive skills may require intact preliterate societies and may be extinct or vestigial in the contemporary world and in contemporary marginalized illiterates. A functioning illiterate or preliterate society may be required to foster the full flowering of such skills. For example, there are many cultural traditions of bards who memorize long poems and pass them on through generations ( Lord, 1995 ). We tend to think of illiterates as concrete thinkers, yet the fables, proverbs, myths, idioms, and even the metaphors built into the very structure of our languages that have come to us from largely preliterate societies from millennia ago are often quite abstract.

Literacy Versus Schooling

Very important cognitive consequences of learning to read and write have been suggested: Changes in visual perception, logical reasoning (i.e., executive functions), remembering strategies ( Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, 1983 ), as well as access to lexical storage and explicit phonological processing ( Kosmidis et al., 2006 ) and improved working memory. Schooling appears to influence formal operational thinking ( Laurendeau-Bendavid, 1977 ) and functional brain organization ( Castro-Caldas, Petersson, Reis, Stone-Elander, et al., 1998 ; Ostrosky-Solis, Ramirez, Lozano, Picasso, & Velez, 2004 ) and to reinforce particular attitudes and values related to learning. Conversely, training these abilities may make it easier to learn to read and write. Interestingly, adults who received training in those abilities in which illiterates significantly underscore (e.g., verbal memory, phonological abstraction, etc.) showed a significant improvement in neuropsychological test scores and a facilitation in their learning-to-read process ( Ostrosky-Solís et al., 2003 ).

Literacy without schooling: The Vai

Scribner and Cole (1981) attempted to separate the effects of literacy from the effects of formal schooling by studying Vai people in Liberia who were literate in the Vai script, but who had not attended school. Vai people have their own script. The script is taught at home, rather than school, allowing the researchers to separate school-based education from literacy. Indeed, there are three educational systems in the Vai culture: (a) Traditional socialization—the bush school, taught by men for boys, and by women for girls; (b) English schooling—much like American schooling, and (c) Quranic schooling—conducted in Arabic. They found that there were no general effects of literacy on a battery of cognitive tests, but performance on some tests was related to particular features of the Vai script and literacy practices. Scribner and Cole proposed that there are definite cognitive skills associated with literacy, but not necessarily with classroom learning. And these cognitive skills are dictated by each culture and situation. Berry and Bennet (1989) carried out a partial replication of this study among the Cree of Northern Ontario.

Comparison of groups with low and high education

Kosmidis, Tsapkini, Folia, Vlahou, and Kiosseoglou (2004 ) and Kosmidis et al. (2006 ) attempted to disentangle the effect of education from literacy in a sample of urban dwellers (illiterates, low-education literates, and high-education literates). They found that education influenced lexical decision-making, concluding that the greater the amount of education, the more effective access to, and, perhaps, the greater the size of the lexical store. In contrast, literacy influenced the capacity of the phonological loop: Low- and high-education literates performed equally well on pseudoword repetition, and better than illiterates. Therefore, they concluded that literacy influences the effectiveness of the direct route from the auditory analysis system to the phoneme level, whereas education influences lexical processing. Similarly, Kosmidis and colleagues (2004) found that semantic processing was affected by the level of education attained, whereas phonological processing depended on whether the individual had attained symbolic representation per se through learning grapheme–phoneme correspondence or had been exposed to formal schooling.

Neither literacy nor school attendance is a simple and linear variable. Reading ability is not only correlated with training time, but also with the idiosyncrasies of the reading system. For example, learning to read is easier in a transparent writing system (regular spelling, e.g., Spanish, German, Greek) than in an opaque writing system (irregular spelling, e.g., English, French; Paulesu et al., 2001 ). Furthermore, school attendance goes far beyond learning to read, write, and calculate. School provides background knowledge in many areas (geography, history, language, etc.), but also contributes to developing learning skills. In school, children are exposed to information that is neither part of their immediate environment nor part of their direct experience. They learn how to establish taxonomies of their newly learned concepts, they learn to use paper and pencil, and they use a language different from that used in their everyday life ( Montiel & Matute 2006 ). School develops and reinforces certain cultural and socialization values by creating alternative parental and authority images; certain forms of group behavior; attitudes toward government, church, or other institutions sponsoring their education; and the process of being tested ( Serpell, 1993 ). Children learn from their teachers, their peers, the group activities at school, and the new context.

Two different approaches can be used to understand the potential differences between the literate and the illiterate brain: Functional and anatomic measures.

Traditional Functional Measures: Dichotic Listening

Several studies have used dichotic listening paradigms to study the potential influence of literacy on cerebral lateralization for language ( Castro & Morais, 1987 ; Damasio, Damasio, Castro-Caldas, & Ferro, 1979 ; Karavatos et al., 1984 ; Kosmidis et al., 2004 ; Tzavaras, Kaprinis, & Gatzoyas, 1981 ) yielding conflicting results. Some investigators reported decreased laterality for language among illiterates relative to literates ( Joanette et al., 1983 ), others no laterality differences ( Damasio, Castro-Caldas, Grosso, & Ferro, 1976 ; Kosmidis et al., 2004 ), and yet others stronger lateralization among illiterates relative to literates ( Tzavaras et al., 1981 ). Potential reasons for the conflicting results may relate to characteristics of the stimuli used in each investigation, such as the nature of the stimuli (i.e., words, pseudowords, numbers, syllables), the phonetic and the acoustic characteristics of the sounds (i.e., stop, nasal, fricative and liquid consonants, or consonants with abrupt onset), and differences in onset and intensity of stimuli in a pair ( Ahonniska et al., 1993 ; Castro & Morais, 1987 ). More recent investigations of the dichotic listening process (among literate individuals) have highlighted the role of attentional resource activity in addition to cerebral dominance for language ( Reinvang et al., 1994 ; van Ettinger-Veenstra et al., 2010 ; Westerhausen & Hugdahl, 2008 ). Unfortunately, none of the studies of dichotic listening in illiteracy took this parameter into account. Therefore, although not informative with regard to the question of hemispheric dominance for language processing in illiterates in general, past studies on dichotic listening among illiterates highlight the need for breaking down language processing into more specific cognitive mechanisms.

Contemporary Functional Measures

Recent studies using different functional measures have demonstrated that literacy and education influence the pathways used by the brain for problem-solving. Schooled literates and illiterates show equivalent left hemisphere attenuation of cortical event-related potentials during a verbal memory task (for instance, memorizing words), but intrahemispheric differences at parietotemporal areas, suggesting that learning literacy produces intrahemispheric specialization ( Ostrosky-Solis et al., 2004 ).

Similarly, several studies using positron emission tomography (PET) and statistical parametric mapping or functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) found additional differences between schooled literates and illiterates in the brain areas activated during language-based tests (i.e., left hemisphere perisylvian area). Interestingly, in one study using repetition of words and repetition of pseudowords, these differences were much more relevant during pseudoword repetition suggesting that the inability to process phonological segmentation was the inability to activate the brain regions responsible for doing it; the only activation in words versus pseudowords that was greater in the literate than in the illiterate group was the more prominent left-sided posterior parietal activation. In particular, when masking with the activation pattern defined by the words–pseudowords contrast in literates, there was increased activation of a left inferior parietal region (BA 40) in literates compared with illiterates in words versus pseudowords. During real-word repetition, the difference was confined to a left parietal region that can be related to the process of writing ( Castro-Caldas, Petersson, Reis, Stone-Elander, et al., 1998 ; Fig.  1 ). This differential activation of neural structures to real versus nonreal words suggested fundamental differences in cognitive processing based on phonological information. A subsequent replication of the aforementioned PET findings ( Petersson et al., 2000 ) traced differences in the neuronal networks used by illiterates versus schooled literates in pseudoword repetition to the interaction between Broca's area and the inferior parietal lobe, as well as the posterior-midinsula bridge between Wernicke's and Broca's areas. Finally, education-related differences were reported in an fMRI study of the effects of education on neural activation in healthy right-handed Chinese subjects ( Li et al., 2006) . These differences in activation patterns emerged in the left inferior/middle frontal gyrus and both sides of the superior temporal gyrus for a silent word recognition task and in the bilateral inferior/middle frontal gyrus and limbic cingulate gyrus for a silent word and picture-naming task. It was suggested that these results indicate that the patterns of neural activation associated with language tasks are strongly influenced by education. Education appears to have enhanced cognitive processing efficiency in language tasks.

Maximum intensity projections of all significant activations thresholded. Results of the interaction analysis (A) word repetition (literate–illiterate) and (B) pseudo-word repetition (literate–illiterate; adapted from Castro-Caldas, Petersson, Reis, Stone-Elander, et al., 1998 ).

Even when their cognitive performance is equivalent, schooled literates and illiterates appear to use different brain activation patterns to perform the same task. Deloche, Souza, Braga, and Dellatolas (1999 ) studied healthy right-handed Brazilians (unschooled illiterates and college graduates) on a task judging the magnitude of numbers within a familiar context (e.g., 10 people in a standard-sized car, 9 students in a school: Is this a lot, average, or too little?). Both groups performed similarly well with regard to the correctness of their judgments. Functional MRI scans, however, demonstrated different brain activation patterns: The college graduates used the left hemisphere exclusively, specifically, the left frontal (BA 47), inferior parietal (BA 40), and temporal lobes (BA 42, 21, and 22). In contrast, the illiterates activated both hemispheres during the task, specifically, the temporal (BA 39, 20, and 22) and the occipital lobes (BA 19 and 37) bilaterally. Activation of the left temporal lobe (BA 21 and 22) was the only finding common to both groups in the number processing task. In post-fMRI interviews inquiring about the strategies that the participants used to perform the judgment task, 95% of the illiterates reported having used visual images, which may explain the activation of the occipital lobe in this group. The college graduates predominantly used abstraction to solve the problems, which corresponds to their left hemisphere activation.

Carreiras and colleagues (2009) compared structural brain scans from those who learned to read as adults (late literates) with matched illiterates. It was observed that late literates had more white matter in the splenium of the corpus callosum and more grey matter in bilateral angular, dorsal occipital, middle temporal, and left supramarginal and superior temporal gyri. It was also disclosed that the anatomical connections linking the left and right angular and dorsal occipital gyri through the area of the corpus callosum white matter was larger in late literates than in illiterates. Results were interpreted to suggest that reading increased the interhemispheric functional connectivity between the left and right angular gyri.

In sum, the data produced by functional imaging studies on brain activation during cognitive tasks support the contention that learning literacy impacts not only the individual's day-to-day strategies, but also influences the functional architecture of the adult human brain.

Anatomical Interhemispheric Comparisons

Comparing schooled literates and illiterates, Castro-Caldas and colleagues (1999) observed a slightly thinner corpus callosum in illiterates, specifically the region where parietal fibers are thought to cross. The morphology of the corpus callosum appears sensitive to the quality of the information content of the brain. The corpus callosum is larger for instance, in musicians presumably because their performance with musical instruments requires the involvement of both hemispheres ( Norton et al., 2005 ). In the aforementioned PET scan study ( Castro-Caldas, Petersson, Reis, Stone-Elander, et al., 1998 ), differences between groups indicated a dissociation between the superior and the inferior parts of the angular-supramarginal regions, that is, the superior parts being more active on the left than on the right in illiterates compared with literates, whereas the reverse was the case for the inferior parts and the precuneus. This suggests differential recruitment of right and left regions of the parietal lobe related to literacy and is in accordance with the finding reported above for magnitude judgments.

Some authors have postulated that hemispheric specialization is dependent on the nature of the task rather than the nature of the stimulus; for instance, Stephan and colleagues (2003) used fMRI in a group of normal subjects during letter and visuospatial decision tasks with identical word stimuli to address two unresolved problems. It was noted that hemispheric specialization depended on the nature of the task rather than on the nature of the stimulus. Furthermore, the increased coupling between left anterior cingulate cortex and left inferior frontal gyrus during letter decisions was observed, whereas right anterior cingulate cortex showed enhanced coupling with right parietal areas during visuospatial decisions; these authors suggested that cognitive control is thus localized in the same hemisphere as task execution. We would propose an additional point based on the aforementioned findings: Hemispheric specialization may also be related to the strategy used to solve the problem (verbal, spatial, etc.), which is dependent on the individual's skills acquired by learning.

General Cognitive Functioning

Mini-mental state exam.

The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) is a brief exam widely used by physicians primarily to screen for the level of delirium or dementia. It consists of items of orientation, memory, attention, drawing, reading, writing, repetition, naming, and following directions, scored on a 30-point scale ( Folstein, Folstein, & Mchugh, 1975 ). The total MMSE scores for illiterate samples average around 15–20 points (Table  3 ), in the range of severe cognitive alterations according to the 23 of 24 point cut-off suggested by Folstein and colleagues (1975) .

Given its widespread use as a screening instrument for cognitive dysfunction, potential effects of literacy on performance may be biased against those who are illiterate (Table  3 ). In fact, Bertolucci, Brucki, Campacci, and Juliano (1994) found that illiterates differed from schooled literates on the MMSE not only on items related to writing and arithmetic (calculation, reading a command, writing a sentence, and copying a line drawing), but also on orientation to time. Other studies have found even more extensive differences; in one study, 16 of 19 questions differentiated schooled literates from illiterates at a level of significance of P < .001, where only repetition, recall, and naming were unrelated to literacy ( Rosselli et al., 2000 ), with differences in performance being observed even between illiterates and people with as little as 1 year of education at a level of significance of P < .0001 ( Brucki, Nitrini, Caramelli, Bertolucci, & Okamoto, 2003 ).

Scores for illiterates on the MMSE in different normative studies

Note: MMSE = Mini Mental State Exam.

Motor Functions

Writing is a fine movement activity; therefore, illiterate people may be less proficient with complex motor tests when compared with people able to write. In fact, several studies have supported this hypothesis. Rosselli, Ardila, and Rosas (1990) found statistically significant differences between illiterates and university-educated individuals in clinical tests of apraxia (buccofacial and ideomotor praxis, finger alternating movements, meaningless movements, coordinated movements with both hands, and motor impersistence tasks). When mimicking movements, illiterates frequently used the hand as instrument (body-part-as-object). Illiterates also tended to replace the movement for the corresponding verbalization. Nitrini, Caramelli, Herrera, Charchat-Fichman, and Porto (2005) administered Luria's fist-edge-palm test to 745 individuals with different educational levels, including 238 illiterates. Logistic regression showed that illiteracy was associated with failure, whereas gender and age were not. The proportion of individuals failing was inversely related to years of schooling. For those able to reproduce the sequence, the number of demonstrations for successful reproduction was also inversely related to years of schooling. Finally, Ostrosky, Ardila, and Rosselli (1999) investigated performance on four motor tests—changing left–hand position, changing right–hand position, alternating movements with both hands, and Luria's opposite reactions test—across different educational levels. On all four motor tests, performance was higher in the participants with a higher educational level. The effect of level of education was robust on the first three tests, but minimal on the fourth.

Bramäo and colleagues (2007) corroborated the association between reading skills and performance on visuomotor tasks. They instructed illiterate and literate (Portuguese) participants to use the right or the left index finger to touch a randomly presented target on the right or left side of a touch screen. The literate subjects were significantly faster in detecting and touching targets on the left compared with the right side of the screen. Presentation side did not affect performance of the illiterate group.

In conclusion, illiterates demonstrate poorer performance in a diversity of motor tests, including reproducing movements and sequences of movements, alternating movements with both hands, and imitating meaningless movements.

Calculation and Number Processing

The assessment of calculation and number processing in illiterates and semiliterates after a brain injury is often a complex task because these processes are closely linked to education. On the other hand, calculation is present in myriad daily life situations, such as in the use of money, means of transportation (bus routes, subways, trains), telephone numbers, and mental calculations.

An international group of neuropsychologists created a battery of tests (EC 301) for evaluating calculation and number processing in literate brain-damaged adults ( Deloche et al., 1994 ). This instrument was adapted into several languages (English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish), thus providing a common tool for structurally equivalent evaluations of examinees’ abilities. Nevertheless, the use of this tool in illiterates and semiliterates was shown to be ineffective. A standardized, validated version of the original EC 301 Battery in Portuguese was developed in Brazil. Ten simple tasks assessing counting, number processing, elementary calculation, and quantity estimation were presented to 122 normal Brazilian adults, aged between 18 and 58 years with 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 years of education ( Deloche et al., 1999 ). Tasks such as counting the number of elements in small sets were almost perfectly mastered by these illiterates and semiliterates; however, a sizeable proportion of the sample made errors on other tasks (e.g., those assessing knowledge of the correspondence between numbers and banknotes).

Language abilities have been strongly correlated with a socioeducational level. Low socioeconomic parents use more nonverbal than verbal strategies with children ( Robinson, 1974 ). Along the same lines, the language used by people with a low socioeconomic level is less fluent and has a simpler grammatical structure; it relies much more on emotional than on logical strategies ( Bernstein, 1974 ). Similarly, rural, unschooled children may lack symbolic representation skills because their linguistic ability is tied to the immediate context of the referent ( Bruner, Oliver, & Greenfield, 1966 ). Thus, it appears that formal education facilitates the development of language into a fully symbolic tool. At least one study ( Lantz, 1979 ), however, showed that rural unschooled children performed better than schooled Indian or American children in coding and decoding culturally relevant objects, such as grain, and seeds. Thus, children without formal schooling were able to separate language symbols from the physical referent and to use those symbols for communicating accurately, but display of this ability depended on the cultural relevance of the stimuli used ( Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, 1983 ). In fact, the significance of schooling lies not just in the acquisition of new knowledge, but in the creation of new motives and formal modes of discursive verbal and logical thinking divorced from immediate practical experience ( Luria, 1976 ).

Verbal fluency tests have been administered to illiterate populations in several countries. Table  4 presents the results of the available normative studies for the category “animals.” Most frequently, the number of animals found in 1 min is about 10–12. With increasing education, the number of items progressively increases.

Animal fluency in illiterates

Performance on phonemic or letter fluency tests is extremely difficult for illiterates. Available data suggest that letter fluency in illiterates may be about 3–4 words in 1 min, at least for Spanish and Greek, although this could vary by language (e.g., Kosmidis et al., 2004 ; Montiel & Matute, 2006 ; Ostrosky et al., 1999 , 2004).

Language repetition ability in illiterates is equivalent to that of schooled literates if real, high-frequency words are presented. However, when using pseudowords, difficulties are observed ( Kosmidis et al., 2004 ; Petersson et al., 2000 ; Reis & Castro-Caldas, 1997 ). Similarly, illiterates repeat high-frequency, but not low-frequency, words normally ( Rosselli et al., 1990 ). Of course, low-frequency words may be equivalent to pseudowords for a person with a limited vocabulary. Reis and Castro-Caldas (1997) proposed that illiterate individuals (a) have difficulties in repeating pseudowords, (b) are worse at memorizing pairs of phonologically related words compared with pairs of semantically related words, and (c) have difficulties in generating words according to a formal criterion. Illiterate persons use strategies that are good for semantic processing, but inadequate for explicit phonological analysis, while literate individuals are able to use several parallel running strategies.

It can be conjectured that vocabulary size is significantly correlated with educational level, considering that current educational systems are especially directed toward reinforcing verbal abilities and verbal knowledge. Reis, Guerreiro, and Castro-Caldas (1994 ) and Reis, Petersson, Castro-Caldas, and Ingvar (2001) compared schooled literates and illiterates on the task of naming real objects, naming photographs of these objects, and naming drawings of them. Results showed that although both groups performed similarly at naming real objects, illiterates performed more poorly on naming photographs and even more poorly on naming drawings. The authors suggested that introducing color information was useful in improving the performance of illiterates in naming drawings ( Reis et al., 2001 ). Therefore, increasing the amount of information contributed to better access to the name.

Metalinguistic Awareness

It has been observed that illiterate versus literate people do not differ in categorical perception of phonemes, but illiterate people display a less precise categorical boundary and a stronger lexical bias ( Serniclaes et al., 2005 ; Ventura, Kolinsky, Querido, Fernandes, & Morais, 2007 ). Literacy, however, has been related to metalinguistic awareness (which can be regarded as an executive function), since it is by means of the latter that it is possible to turn aspects of language into objects of reflection. Specifically, studies associated with phonological awareness suggest that learning to read leads children to dissect language into small, nonmeaningful units. Illiterate adults find it difficult to consider words and nonwords as sequences of phonemes ( Morais, Cary, Alegria, & Bertelson, 1979 ) and, as a consequence, they underperform on tasks that require thinking about the words’ phonemic characteristics (e.g., phonemic fluency tasks; Kosmidis et al., 2004 ; Reis & Castro Caldas, 1997 ).

However, illiterate performance is better, although still inferior to that of schooled literates, when the critical unit is the syllable rather than a phoneme, as well as on rhyme detection ( Morais, Bertelson, Cary, & Alegria, 1987 ). When comparing illiterate to literate nonschooled groups on explicit phonological awareness tasks, Montiel and Matute (2006) found equivalent performance between groups when dealing with syllables, but differences on the onset detection task and on the initial phoneme detection test. Nonetheless, both groups diverge from the schooled literate group on more complex phonemic awareness tasks, such as phonemic segmentation, phoneme blending, and initial phoneme deletion. Illiterate children had difficulty in identifying the number of words in an oral sentence, suggesting that illiterate children find it difficult to think about language as a string of words.

The aforementioned findings suggest that the influence of literacy extends beyond mere explicit phonemic awareness to affect metalinguistic awareness, as well.

Visuoperceptual and Spatial Abilities

One visual-spatial effect of reading is the training of a specific direction of visual scanning (left to right, for most European-origin writing systems). Using nonlinguistic stimuli, Ostrosky-Solís, Efron, and Yund (1991) studied the scanning mechanism through a computer target detection paradigm in 60 illiterate and 60 literate individuals matched on a socioeconomic level. Although target detection accuracy was identical in the two groups, there were significant differences between the dectectability gradients of the literate and illiterate groups, suggesting that learning to read trains the scanning mechanisms toward more consistent scan paths. Padakannaya and colleagues (2002) administered a picture array naming and recall task to three groups of child readers—unidirectional right-to-left readers of Arabic, unidirectional left-to-right readers of Kannada, and bidirectional readers of Urdu and English—and one group of Urdu illiterate adults. The results showed a right-to-left direction of visual scanning in the Arabic and Urdu readers. In the latter group, the strength of the scanning effect decreased with more schooling in English. No right-to-left effect was observed in Kannada readers or Urdu illiterates. These results suggest that the reading direction can affect scan habits in nonlinguistic tasks. The same effect has been documented in drawing.

Vaid, Singh, Sakhuja, and Gupta (2002) analyzed the influence of reading/writing direction and handedness on the direction of stroke movement in free-hand figure drawing. Adult readers of scripts with opposing directionality (Hindi vs. Urdu) and illiterate controls were observed while drawing a tree, a hand, a house, an arrow, a pencil, and a fish. Right-handers (including right-handed illiterates) and left-to-right readers drew most figures from left to right, whereas left-handers (including left handed illiterates) and right-to-left readers more often drew the figures from right to left.

Various neuropsychological studies have shown significant differences between schooled literates and illiterates in performing spatial and visuoperceptual tests. Ardila, Rosselli, and Rosas (1989 ) administered a basic neuropsychological test battery to two extreme educational groups: Illiterate and professional adults, matched by sex and age. All of the visuospatial tasks (copying a cube, a house, and the Rey–Osterrieth Complex Figure; telling the time on a clock; recognizing superimposed figures; recognizing the national map; and drawing the plan of the room) differentiated the two extreme educational groups. Matute and colleagues (2000) used four stick construction tasks (a test with a higher ecological validity for illiterates than copying figures) in illiterate, semiliterate, and literate participants. Although illiterates generally made more errors than semiliterates and semiliterates more than schooled literates, only some of these differences were statistically significant. Significant differences were found for lack of global fidelity and disarticulation errors when all four figures were considered together. Dansilio and Charamelo (2005) used both figure copying and constructional abilities in 15 illiterates and a matched group with about 6–7 years of school. The most frequent and relevant findings in illiterates in figure copying were an inability to reproduce the perspective (13 of 15), unfolding (4 of 15), and unstructured copying (3 of 15). No errors were observed on the stick construction task.

Gonçalves (2004) emphasized the difficulty illiterates had in copying drawings. As can be seen in Fig.  2 (reproduced from Castro-Caldas, 2004 ), an illiterate copied one of the Bender drawings following a sequence that did not respect the idea of two separate but connected elements, which is the way literate individuals tend to read the drawing. This resembles the concept of integrative agnosia proposed by Riddoch and Humphreys (1987) . Visually guided hand motor behavior may also be biased by literacy. In a test paradigm in which literate and illiterate individuals were asked to direct the cursor toward a target on the screen of a computer using the mouse, illiterate individuals were slower then literate controls, in particular when the right hand had to move the cursor to the left side of the screen. This crossed condition is apparently trained by writing ( Reis & Castro-Caldas, 1997 ).

Sequence of copying (right) of a Bender drawing (left).

Culture and literacy can affect strategies used to recall information. Barltlett (1932) proposed that illiterates more frequently use rote learning whereas literate people use more active information integration procedures (“metamemory”). Cole and Scribner (1974) observed that when memorizing information, schooled literates and illiterates make use of their own groupings to structure their recall; for instance, high-school students rely mainly on taxonomic categories, whereas illiterate bush farmers make little use of this principle. The authors argue that cultural differences in memorizing do not consist in the presence or the absence of mnemonic techniques in general, but in the utilization of a specific technique: Reorganization of the to-be-remembered material. This particular strategy for recall could be tied to school learning experiences.

Illiterates generally perform more poorly than schooled literates on conventional neuropsychological memory measures such as wordlist learning and recall ( Ardila et al., 1989 ; Cole, Frankel, & Sharp, 1971 ; Cole, Gay, Glick, & Sharp, 1971 ; Folia & Kosmidis, 2003 ; Montiel & Matute, 2006 ; Nitrini et al., 2004 ), story learning and recall ( Montiel & Matute, 2006 ), verbal paired associates ( Montiel & Matute, 2006 ; Reis & Castro-Caldas, 1997 ), digits backwards ( Montiel & Matute, 2006 ), number-months (an adaptation of the Wechsler Memory Scale III Letter-Number Sequencing task), and complex figure drawing ( Ardila et al., 1989 ). However, the performance of illiterates seems to approach that of literates on object memory ( Folia & Kosmidis, 2003 ; Nitrini, Caramelli, Herrera, Porto, et al., 2004 ) and wordlist recognition memory ( Ardila et al., 1989 ). Illiterates’ low performance in memory tests may be specific to some of the psychometric procedures generally used in testing memory.

The discrepancy observed between poor free recall and good recognition of illiterate individuals on object learning tasks suggests inefficient encoding and retrieval strategies or poor organization of the material to be learned ( Eslinger & Grattan, 1993 ). Recall of learned information generally occurs without cues or external support, requiring considerable self-initiated activity and executive skills in addition to memory abilities ( see Parkin & Leng, 1993 ). Among illiterates, these skills may be adequate for a relatively passive cognitive process such as efficient recognition of stimuli learned through repetition, yet inadequate to support a relatively active and effortful cognitive process such as free recall. This contention is supported by the findings of an improvement in cognitive functions, including verbal memory, not specifically targeted in an adult learning-to-read program; presumably, learning to read enhanced metacognitive abilities such as using analytic strategies, planning, and organizing output sequences, in this sample ( Ardila, Ostrosky & Mendoza, 2000 ). Whether this improvement is a direct result of literacy acquisition or of schooling is not clear.

A PET scan study found no group differences between schooled literates and illiterates on encoding and retrieving paired associate words ( Petersson et al., 2000 ). Both groups showed a positive correlation between cued-recall success and the activation of the left inferior prefrontal cortex and the medial temporal lobes during encoding, suggesting that literacy and schooling do not alter the basic neuroanatomy of encoding verbal material.

Test-Wiseness

Test-wiseness refers to the examinee's knowledge of how tests are designed, the expectations behind tests, and strategies for taking tests, independent of the content the tests are designed to measure Thorndike (1951) . It is seen as a nuisance variable that gives its possessors better scores on tests which may not necessarily reflect better abilities on the capacity being measured. Much of the literature on test-wiseness has investigated students well-entrenched in an educational career and examined relatively sophisticated test strategies in group administered tests, suggesting that effects are modest ( Green & Stewart, 1984 ). However, what few studies are available for very young children and for those from developing countries suggest that the effect is more substantial for these populations. Therefore, an important part of the differences between illiterates and literates on cognitive tests may have to do not so much with cognitive abilities per se , as with test-taking abilities and familiarity. Test taking and, consequently, test-wiseness are most likely skills learned primarily in school ( Nell, 2000 ).

The Effect of Increasing Schooling Time

Even 1 or 2 years of school can make a significant difference in performance on some neuropsychological tests. Ostrosky, Ardila, Rosselli, López-Arango, and Uriel-Mendoza (1998) examined 64 illiterates, 64 adults with 1–2 years of school, and 64 adults with 3–4 years of school with the NEUROPSI. Statistically significant differences were found between the illiterates versus 1–2 years of school—favoring the latter—on the Language Comprehension, Phonological Verbal Fluency, and Similarities subtests. Significant differences were observed between illiterates versus 3–4 years of school—favoring the latter—in the following subtests: Visual Detection, 20–3, Copy of a Semicomplex Figure, Calculation Abilities, Sequences, Alternating movements, Recall of words: Cueing, and Recall of a Semicomplex Figure (Table  5 ).

Mean ( SD ) performance and comparisons of groups by the level of education on NEUROPSI neuropsychological tests (adapted from Ostrosky et al., 1998 )

Notes: G1 = illiterates; G2 = 1–2 years of school; G3 = 3–4 years of school.

Nonetheless, when comparing the scores in the same NEUROPSI test battery of participants with 10–12, 13–17, and 18–24 years of school, only a few significant differences were found. These observations indicate that the educational effect on neuropsychological test performance is “not” linear. Differences between zero and 3 years of education are usually highly significant; differences between 3 and 6 years of education can be lower; between 6 and 9 are even lower; and so forth, with virtually no differences between, for example, 12 and 15 years of education . This means that on neuropsychological tests, education effects represent a negatively accelerated curve, tending to plateau. This is not surprising, considering that, in general, neuropsychological tests have a low ceiling. Another consequence of this finding is that neuropsychological tests that show no education effect between, for example, North Americans with fewer and greater than 12 years of education (but with no fewer than 8 years of education) cannot be safely extrapolated to assume no educational effect for fewer than 8 or as low as 0 years of education.

The length, qualities, and content of the school day and year vary considerably from country to country and even from school to school. More refined measures of length and qualities of schooling are needed in future studies.

Studies in Illiterate Children

In almost all occidental cultures, formal reading acquisition starts as soon as aged 5–6. Thus, the process to become literate starts early in childhood; however, little attention has been paid to illiterate condition in children. A pioneer study in illiterate children was performed in Mexico, with the aim to investigate whether or not the effects of literacy on neuropsychological test performance are already evident during childhood, as has been reported previously for illiterate adult populations. Seeking that purpose, the performance of 21 illiterate children and 22 literate children aged 6–13 was compared on 13 cognitive domains of the “Evaluación Neuropsicológica Infantil” (ENI; “Child Neuropsychological Assessment”): Attention, constructional abilities, verbal memory coding and delayed recall, visual memory coding and delayed recall, tactile perception, visual perception, auditory perception, oral language, metalinguistic awareness, calculation, and spatial abilities. Demographic variables were controlled to avoid effect of socioeconomic characteristics. For the illiterate group, school nonattendance was due to social-family reasons, thus controlling learning disabilities effects. Results showed that the illiterate group significantly underperformed the literate group in mostly all measures except tactile perception. Moreover, age was a significant covariant, where higher scores were related to older ages in both groups. However, when analyzing the cognitive domains that it is known that are related to schooling (metalinguistic awareness and calculation), it was found that metalinguistic awareness task performance improve with age in literate children but it was not the case for the illiterate group; at the same time for the calculation abilities, an effect of age was evident in both groups suggesting that math learning is school and environment-dependent ( Matute et al., Submitted ).

Executive Function was also investigated in these two groups (Matute et al., unpublished) four domains were analyzed: Verbal fluency, mental flexibility, planning and concept formation, and reasoning where 8 measures were compared: Verbal fluency, semantic verbal fluency, phonemic verbal fluency, categories achieved in the card sorting test (mental flexibility test), number of correct designs done with the minimum number of movements in the Pyramid of Mexico Test (a planning and organization test), similarities, and matrices and arithmetic problems. With the exception of the matrices test, the illiterate children scored significantly below the literate children suggesting that differences in the development of executive functions between these two populations are already evident in childhood. The absence of difference in matrices test is related to low score in both groups; thus, it could be possible that those skills underlying this type of test are acquired at a later stage, and intergroup differences would not be evident in childhood.

Learning to Read in Children Versus Learning to Read in Adults

Several studies were designed to compare brain activation of individuals who learned to read and write in childhood at the usual age and those who learned in adulthood. In one of these studies, participants were asked to identify written words during magnetoencephalography (MEG). Results showed that late literates had more late sources of activity in right temporoparietal areas than their controls, who, on the other hand, had more early activation of left inferior frontal areas ( Castro-Caldas, Peterson, Reis, Askelof, et al., 1998 ; Castro-Caldas, Petersson, Reis, Stone-Elander, et al., 1998 ). This suggests that the mechanisms related to reading are different in late literates despite similar performance on the task for both groups. Castro-Caldas and colleagues (2009) in a further study compared late literates to controls to subjects that learned at school at the usual age. MEG was done while subjects were reading words. It was found that although the reading performance was the same in both groups while performing the task, the pattern of source distribution was different between groups. There were more late sources in the right temporoparietal areas of late literates compared with controls and more late sources in the left inferior frontal cortex in control subjects. It is concluded that learning to read in adulthood is a process supported by different brain structures from the ones used when learning occurs at the usual age. Castro-Caldas, et al., (2009) compared seven women who learned how to read and write after the age of 50 (ex-illiterates) and five women with 10 years of regular schooling (controls) in a language recognition test while brain activity was being recorded using MEG. It was found that both groups performed similarly on the task of identifying target words. Analysis of the number of sources of activity in the left and right hemispheres revealed significant differences between the two groups, showing that ex-illiterate subjects exhibited less brain functional asymmetry during the language task. These findings were interpreted as reinforcing the concept that poorly educated subjects tend to use the brain for information processing in a different way to subjects with a high-educational level or who were schooled at the regular time.

The Gender Effect

Gender differences in cognitive abilities have been widely analyzed during the last decades (e.g., Buffery & Gray, 1972 ; Caplan, Crawford, Hyde, & Richardson, 1997 ; Hedges & Nowell, 1995 ; Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974 ). Three major differences between men and women in cognitive abilities have usually been reported: (a) verbal abilities, favoring women; (b) spatial abilities, favoring men; and (c) arithmetical abilities, favoring men. Differences in calculation abilities have sometimes been interpreted as a result of men's superior spatial abilities ( Benbow, Libinski, Shea, & Eftekhari-Sanjani, 2000 ; Geary, 1996 ).

The origin of these differences is not clear, even though some neurological (e.g., Blanch Brennan, Condon, Santosh, & Hadley, 2004 ; Rilea, Roskos-Ewoldsen, & Boles, 2004 ) and environmental (e.g., Quaiser-Pohl & Lehmann, 2002 ) factors have been proposed. Gender differences have also been associated with hormonal influences (e.g., Aleman, Bronk, Kessels, Koppeschaar, & van Honk, 2004 ).

The collaborative Mexican–Colombian research program on the effects of education on neuropsychological test performance has consistently found over the last 30 years that education significantly interacted with gender (e.g., Ardila et al., 1989 , 1992 ; Ostrosky et al., 1985 , 1986 , 1998 ; Rosselli et al., 1990 ). On most neuropsychological tests, among illiterates or people with limited education, men outperformed women, a gender difference which decreased as the level of education increased and virtually disappeared at about the level of a high-school education. To the best of our knowledge, such an interaction between gender and education on cognitive testing has not been reported elsewhere. As an illustration, Fig.  3 presents the scores obtained from individuals with different levels of education in the Rey–Osterrieth Complex Figure. As clearly observed, scores are about 20% higher in illiterate men than in illiterate women. When increasing the education level, differences become progressively smaller and after about 12 years of school, performance is virtually identical.

Performance in the Rey–Osterrieth Complex Figure in normal adults with different levels of education (age = 21–75 years; N = 824) (adapted from Ardila et al., 1989 ; Rosselli & Ardila, 2003 ).

We may assume that this gender difference can be partially due to the characteristics of the population from which the sample was recruited. In Latin American countries, it is not unusual to find that low-educated women remain at home and are solely responsible for child care and house work, particularly for the historical age cohorts in which these studies were carried out. Men go to the factory (or elsewhere) to work and, thus, acquire a more complex understanding of their environment (navigating around the city, taking buses, and similar); they maintain a higher level of social interaction, they handle money, and they are much better informed about national and international events. Simply speaking, they have a higher level of stimulation and use a greater amount of information than women, at least regarding skills needed for the tests used. Studies in other populations are required in order to support or reject this interpretation. This effect suggests that, at least for this population, formal education may have an equalizing gender effect on some cognitive skills, rather than being responsible for gender differences. In any case, these findings suggest that education does have an impact on gender differences in cognitive tests.

Age-Related Cognitive Decline in Illiterates

Capitani, Barbarotto, and Laicana (1996) proposed three possible patterns of association between age–related decline and education: (a) Parallelism: Age–related decline runs the same course in different educational groups, that is, no interaction; (b) Protection: Age–related decline is attenuated in well–educated participants; and (c) Confluence: The initial advantage of well–educated groups in middle age is reduced in later life. The researchers explored these hypotheses in a group of 307 Italians aged 40–85 and mean education levels of 6 versus 13 years; their data supported the parallelism theory for verbal fluency, spatial memory, and Raven's Progressive Matrices, but the protection theory for visual attention and verbal memory. Confluence was not observed on any of their five tests. They concluded that the protective effect of education is not ubiquitous, but depends on the specific cognitive ability measured.

With a wider age and education range on the NEUROPSI, Ardila and colleagues (2000) found parallelism, protection, and two different subtypes of confluence (upward and downward; Table  6 ). For some subtests, a specific pattern was not evident. They, too, concluded that different patterns of age–related cognitive decline and education may be found, depending on the specific cognitive domain. These results agree with Capitani and colleagues for verbal memory, but not for verbal fluency, and other domains (and the participant samples) are not comparable. Furthermore, these are cross-sectional studies and subject to possible cohort effects.

Examples of different patterns of cognitive decline across age ranges; mean scores and standard deviations (in parentheses) are presented

Note: In each case, performance at the 16–30 years is taken as 100% (adapted from Ardila, Ostrosky & Mendoza, 2000 ).

Dementia in Illiterates

Decreased prevalence and incidence of dementia among persons with a higher level of education have been reported by some population-based studies ( Qiu et al., 2001 ; Zhang et al., 1990 ), findings that have been explained by the cognitive reserve hypothesis, which holds that the individual differences in how tasks are processed provide differential resistance against brain pathology or age-related changes ( Katzman et al., 1989 ; Stern, 2006 ). According to this hypothesis, highly educated individuals may either have greater neural reserve, that is, brain networks that are less susceptible to disruption, or they may have more neural compensation, which renders them more capable of developing efficient strategies to cope with the negative effects of disease and ageing ( Stern, 2006 ). In a postmortem study of a large number of elderly individuals, between 12%–19% of the individuals fulfilled neuropathological criteria for Alzheimer's disease (AD), although they had not been considered demented during life. When the authors investigated this phenomenon, they found that as the number of years of formal education increases, the odds of a clinical dementia diagnosis decreases by approximately 0.82–0.87 with each additional year of education, thus supporting the cognitive reserve hypothesis ( Roe, Xiong, Miller, & Morris, 2007 ).

A positive association between AD and low education has been found in many studies (e.g., Callahan et al., 1996 ; Friedland, 1993 ; Katzman, 1993 ; Letenneur, Commenges, Dartigues, & Barberger-Gateau, 1994 ; Liu et al., 1994 ; Mortimer & Graves, 1993 ; Rocca et al., 1990 ; Yu et al., 1989 ; Zhang et al., 1990 ) carried out in different countries: Brazil ( Caramelli et al., 1997 ), China ( Hill et al., 1993 ; Yu et al., 1989 ), Finland ( Sulkava, Wikstrom, & Aromaa, 1985 ), France ( Dartigues, Gagnon, & Michel, 1991 ), Italy ( Bonaiuto, Rocca, & Lippi, 1990 ; Rocca et al., 1990 ), Israel ( Korczyn, Kahan, & Gulper, 1991 ), Sweden ( Fratiglioni et al., 1991 ), and the USA ( Stern et al., 1994 ). In a Brazilian population study ( Herrera, Caramelli, Silveira, & Nitrini, 2002 ), the prevalence ratio of dementia in illiterates was 3.5 times higher than in those with 8 or more years of schooling (Table  7 ). Given that the low-educational level is often coupled with the low socioeconomic level, the authors performed a multivariate analysis, which confirmed that the low-educational level was associated with the higher prevalence of dementia ( Herrera et al., 2002 ).

Prevalence of dementia in relation to educational level (adapted from Herrera et al., 2002 )

a The prevalence in this age group was taken as reference.

In a recent analysis of six Latin American studies, which included 26,199 elderly, dementia was two times more frequent in illiterate than in literate individuals, a relevant finding because the pooled data show that the rate of illiteracy among the elderly was approximately 10%. Significant differences of prevalence between illiterate and literate individuals were observed in seven out of the eight population studies ( Nitrini et al., 2009 )

Negative results, however, have also been reported (e.g., Christensen & Henderson, 1991 ; Knoefel et al., 1991 ; O'Connor, Pollitt, & Treasure, 1991 ; Rocca et al., 1990 ). For instance, the Framingham study found no association between the educational levels and the risk of AD ( Knoefel et al., 1991 ) in a predominantly literate population. Furthermore, a pooled analysis of European data ( Launer, Dinkgreve, Jonker, Hooijer, & Lindeboom, 1993 ) showed that the deleterious effect of a lower education was more marked in women than in men. Neither gender nor education was associated with a positive family history of dementia or the presence of the APOe4 allele ( Duara et al., 1996 ). Finally, a study of a predominantly illiterate population in the rural areas of India also failed to detect an influence of education on the prevalence of dementia ( Chandra et al., 1998 ).

The higher prevalence of dementia among illiterates could be explained by possible overdiagnosis in this group due to a lack of test-wiseness. However, a majority of studies adjusted cut-off scores or used tests more appropriate for populations with educational heterogeneity ( Zhang et al., 1990 ), as well as informant questionnaires ( Herrera et al., 2002 ; Nitrini et al., 2004 ), decreasing the likelihood of this possibility.

In an investigation of the factors affecting age of onset and rate of progression of AD, the researchers concluded that AD progresses steadily, regardless of education, occupation, and other factors tested ( Bowler, Munoz, Merskey, & Hachinski, 1998 ); however, the age of referral to a memory clinic, which was correlated with the age of onset, differed according to the educational level. Those with a high level of education tended to be younger upon referral than those with a low level of education. However, the scores in the extended scale for dementia on initial assessment were similar between patients with a low and those with a high level of education. The authors further investigated the influence of education and socioeconomic status in the autopsy-confirmed cases of AD (Munoz et al., 2000). They compared two groups of autopsied patients, 115 confirmed AD and 142 patients 65 years or older without dementia who died in the hospital without neurodegenerative disease. They found no substantial differences in education, occupation, and socioeconomic or income levels between groups.

Hendrie and colleagues (2001) and Ogunniyi and colleagues (2000) compared the prevalence rate of dementia of 2,494 elderly poorly educated Nigerian residents in Nigeria to the prevalence rate of 2,212 African Americans with similar education, living in the USA. The rates of the Nigerians (2.29%) were much lower than the rates for the U.S. group (8.24%), which suggests that education is not the relevant factor for dementia. Furthermore they report different risk factors in these two groups. In Nigeria, old age and female gender were revealed to be significant risk factors, whereas among African Americans old age, rural living below the age of 19 years, low education, and family history of dementia were the risk factors. In addition, the frequencies of the vascular risk factors investigated were lower in Nigerians, which may suggest involvement of environmental factors in disease processes.

In conclusion, the issue of the influence of the educational level on the clinical diagnosis, prevalence, progression, or severity of AD is still far from fully understood. Indeed, we may find some differences between the well-selected groups of participants. These differences may be a reflection of cognitive strategies used based on different levels of school achievement. More prospective and well-designed studies are needed to further clarify this topic.

Two opposing points of view have emerged in the neuropsychological literature regarding the influence of education on brain organization of language. Cameron, Currier, and Haerer (1971) reported a lower frequency of aphasias associated with injuries of the left hemisphere among right–handed illiterate patients than among educated ones. The authors concluded that language is more bilaterally represented in the illiterate group. In contrast, Damasio and colleagues (1976) claimed that there is no qualitative or quantitative difference between the aphasias of educated and illiterate patients. The aphasia of schooled literates or illiterates did not differ in the prevalence rate, distribution of clinical types, or semiological structure.

Matute's research (1988) supports the Damasio and colleagues (1976) conclusions. She compared three groups of right–handed Mexican adults: Brain–damaged illiterates, brain–damaged literates, and normal illiterates. An aphasia test was given to all three groups in the context of a more extensive neuropsychological assessment. No differences between the two brain damaged groups were evident in regard to language measures related to repetition, oral expression, and comprehension. However, when analyzing incidence of aphasia due to unilateral brain lesions, all left hemisphere–damaged illiterates presented aphasia, although the lesion locus for some of them were out of the perisylvian area, whereas none presented aphasia after right hemisphere damage. Thus, the data obtained in this study suggest a less intrahemispheric specialization for language on the left hemisphere in illiterates.

The hypothesis that illiterates might have a different cerebral organization for language and, therefore, deviate from literates in their clinical profile; the severity of their aphasia or their prognosis was evident as early as 1867 with Scoresby–Jackson's observation of an illiterate patient. This author presented a case of an illiterate patient with a severe motor aphasia. After the postmortem exam, the author found that although the lesion was very extended in the left hemisphere, the frontal lobe was attainted only in the posterior part of the third frontal circumvolution, where Broca had located the spoken language. Since it was only the posterior part of the third frontal circumvolution that was attainted, Scoresby–Jackson suggested that a bigger part of this circumvolution would participate in language only with a grater language acquisition (given by reading acquisition). Thus, in the illiterate people, it would be only the posterior extreme of the third frontal circumvolution that will be active in language expression, whereas in a literate person, all the circumvolution will be employed. Finally, the author stated that language and writing will be learned with the posterior part of the left third frontal circumvolution and with the experience given by the “exercise in the art of speaking and writing” a larger part of this circumvolution will be employed. Critchley (1956) was probably the first author to suggest that hemispheric functional asymmetry could be influenced by schooling. He suggested that low-educated persons tended to have less left hemispheric lateralization for language functions. This suggestion was supported by Wechsler's (1976) interpretation of the crossed aphasia in his illiterate patient ( Castro-Caldas et al., 1987 ).

Fonseca and Castro-Caldas (2002) compared the recovery process of literate and illiterate aphasics. They studied 24 illiterates and compared those with 42 schooled literates matched for age, gender, and type of aphasia. Generally, all scores obtained in subtests of the Aphasia battery were lower in illiterates than they were in literate controls. Patients were tested in the first month of their disease and 6 months later. The global scores of aphasia improved similarly in both groups; however, the correlation between the test scores suggested that the process of recovery was different for each group.

Lecours and colleagues (1987a , 1987b , 1988 ) studied the relationship between brain damage and schooling with regard to aphasic impairments of language. On the basis of their findings, the authors concluded that: (a) There was a greater right–hemisphere language involvement in illiterates than in the well–educated patients; and (b) left–stroke school–educated patients seemed to be “sicker,” as it were, than their illiterate counterparts, that is: (i) The classical symptoms of aphasia (suppression stereotype, jargon aphasia) were more apparent among left stroke schooled literates than among left–stroke illiterates; and (ii) auditory comprehension was more frequently impaired among the left stroke literate patients.

Lecours and colleagues (1987b) also studied the influence of education on unilateral neglect syndrome. They analyzed a large sample of right–handed unilingual brain–damaged individuals: Illiterates (left stroke and right stroke) and schooled literates (left stroke and right stroke). Evidence of a unilateral neglect syndrome was found in both left- and right-brain-damaged schooled literates and illiterates. Their results provided no indication that tropisms were globally stronger depending on the side of the lesion or on the educational level of the patients. Rosselli, Rosselli, Vergara, and Ardila (1985) , however, reported a higher frequency of right hemispatial neglect in low–educated patients.

In summary, studies of brain–damaged illiterates, when compared with brain–damaged literates, have indicated that: (a) Literacy does not change the dominance of the left hemisphere for language, illiterates as well as literates present aphasia most often after left brain damage, and not after right brain damage; and (b) the right hemisphere appears to have a disproportionate involvement in language in illiterate when compared with literate individuals. This is based on the following evidence: Left-damaged literates present a larger number of errors in aphasia tests than left-damaged illiterates ( Lecours et al., 1988 ; Matute, 1988 ) and right–damaged illiterates more frequently present poorer performance in aphasia tests than right-damaged literates ( Lecours et al., 1987a , 1987b ).

Some Clinical Implications

Brain injury, either due to stroke or TBI, may have various clinical manifestations, depending on the brain areas affected. The individual may develop isolated or associated disorders of language, reading, writing, calculation, memory, attention, vision, visuoconstruction, behavior, and/or movement. These problems need to be identified in order to establish an adequate rehabilitation program. However, identifying many of these disorders is sometimes difficult because there are still very few neuropsychological tools created for, standardized, and normed on illiterates. Furthermore, many existing tests depend on content or processes related to education. It is often challenging to distinguish whether test difficulties experienced by an illiterate individual are due to brain injury or if they are preexistent, because the individual never learned the skills being measured.

Tests that have already been standardized on illiterates in different countries, include the MMSE, NEUROPSI, NEUROPSI Attention and Memory, Rey–Osterrieth Complex Figure, Luria's fist-edge palm test, motor tests, verbal fluency tests, visuoperceptual and spatial tests, memory tests, executive function tests, calculation, number processing, and others ( Ardila et al., 1989 , 1992 , 2000, 2003; Bertolucci et al., 1994 ; Brucki et al., 2004; Dansilio et al., 2005; Deloche et al., 1999 ; Folia & Kosmidis, 2003 ; Kosmidis et al., 2004 ; Loureiro et al., 2004 ; Nitrini, Caramelli, Herrera, Porto, et al., 2004 ; Nitrini et al., 2004 , 2005 ; Ostrosky-Solis et al., 1985 , 1986, 1998, 1999, 2004; Rosselli et al., 1990 ). Additional research is needed to determine if these norms can be generalized to other illiterate populations and to determine their sensitivity to brain impairment and their prediction of functional abilities. More tools are also needed. However, tests not normed on these populations may be helpful in demonstrating preserved abilities and strengths.

Neuropsychological assessment of illiterates should emphasize history taking, understanding their functioning within their social and cultural context, and exploration of the ways in which that functioning differs from that of their peers and/or from their own premorbid functioning. That history should also include distinguishing whether their illiteracy is due to lack of opportunity or failure to learn.

The neurorehabilitation of illiterate people after brain injury or illness presents challenges to rehabilitation programs oriented toward literates. Neuropsychological rehabilitation yields much more effective results when it is adapted to the individual's specific context ( Lave, 1996 ; Rogoff, 1990 ). Consequently, any such program must take into consideration the person's work environment, family life, and cultural context to maximize success. Current cognitive rehabilitation techniques for memory, and, to some extent, executive functions, tend to favor written compensatory techniques such as memory books and written directions. Such techniques need to be adapted to serve the illiterate patient ( Judd & DeBoard, 2007 ).

Literacy is strongly reflected in the performance of tasks used in psychological, as well as neuropsychological evaluations. Acquiring literacy appears to influence visual perception, logical reasoning, remembering strategies ( Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, 1983 ), and formal operational thinking ( Laurendeau-Bendavid, 1977 ). It is a mistake to assume that the inability to perform simple cognitive tasks, such as those frequently incorporated in current neuropsychological test batteries, necessarily means abnormal brain function. The degree of literacy can often represent the crucial variable.

The influence of literacy seems to go further: Literacy may somehow change the brain organization of cognition. Studies of the consequences of brain damage in illiterate populations evidence a more bilateral representation among illiterates than literates not only for linguistic, but probably also for visuospatial abilities. Apparently, literacy does not change the direction of laterality in the brain organization of cognition, but the degree of this lateralization.

School attendance does not mean that educated people simply possess certain abilities that less-educated individuals lack. Reading ability rather seems to represent an additional instrument to extend cognition. Illiteracy does not mean either that highly educated people have the same abilities as less-educated individuals, plus something else. Nonetheless, formal cognitive testing evaluates those abilities in which the educated child was trained. Therefore, it is not surprising that he or she will outperform the child with no formal education. It must be emphasized that the educational level has a substantial relationship with performance on some cognitive tests, but is not systematically related to everyday problem-solving (functional criterion of intelligence; Cornelious & Caspi, 1987 ). It is not totally accurate to assume that people with low levels of education are somehow “deprived”. It may be more accurate to assume that they have developed different types of learning, more procedural, pragmatic and sensory oriented.

Therefore, the effects of literacy and schooling on cognition include the following: Consequently, many of “the effects of literacy are not only due to learning to read, but also to attending school,” and, thus, developing a way of interpreting the world—a cosmovision, so to speak—the cosmovision of learning and understanding.

Literacy provides an additional instrument for acquiring information . Information can be obtained not only using oral tradition, but also from books, journals, and so forth.

The process of learning to read and write may train specific additional abilities , such as explicit phonological awareness, spatial perception, and fine movements.

Reading and writing implies an additional instrument of conceptualization, interpretation, and mediation of the world ( Luria, 1966 ; Vygotsky, 1934/1978 ). Memory not only means being able to recall something, but also recording the information in a notebook (“auxiliary hippocampus”); social communication not only means speaking and listening, but also reading and writing. An explanation about how to improve agriculture can be replaced by a written pamphlet. The instruction about how to go to a particular place can be found through reading a paper or using written street names.

Attending school also has certain consequences on cognition, independent of reading and writing. It contributes to the development of specific attitudes toward knowing, understanding, and thinking. School provides training in reading, but also in mathematics, geography, drawing, history, and natural sciences. Furthermore, school represents a special type of setting centered on specific values: Learning, memorizing, understanding, and achieving. This is not necessarily valid to the same extent in every type of school (e.g., in a school of arts, a trade school or a religious school).

It also appears that lateralized fine motor skills develop in the process of learning to write. Habits in directions of visual scanning also appear to develop with the acquisition of literacy.

It is fairly clear that illiterates generally perform more poorly than literates on a variety of cognitive and neuropsychological tests. The reasons for this are not obvious, but candidate explanations are: The relative weight of each of these factors, or perhaps even other, unknown factors, on the neuropsychological performance of illiterates is not yet known. Future studies in this area are needed to determine the factors that may contribute to differential neuropsychological performance between literates and illiterates, as well as the relative role of the particular cognitive functions being tested, the educational system and philosophy to which examinees were exposed, the particular language, writing system, and/or population from which they have been influenced.

Acquiring literacy develops cognitive skills that are measured by the tests.

Cognitive instruction that is part of schooling but not specifically part of learning literacy develops some of the cognitive skills measured by the tests.

Schooling develops an understanding of what is expected in testing and how to go about taking tests effectively.

Schooling develops a predisposition toward achievement in testing.

The process of elucidating cognitive mechanisms particular to illiteracy, especially as they contrast with those involved in literacy, may help to expand our understanding of human cognition and functional brain organization as they relate to both normal and pathological conditions.

None declared.

Google Scholar

Google Preview

• educational status

Email alerts

Citing articles via.

• Recommend to your Library

Affiliations

• Online ISSN 1873-5843
• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Institutional account management
• Rights and permissions
• Get help with access
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Home — Essay Samples — Education — Academic Concerns — Illiteracy

Essays on Illiteracy

Cause and effect of illiteracy, the problems of illiteracy pakistan is facing today, made-to-order essay as fast as you need it.

Each essay is customized to cater to your unique preferences

+ experts online

A Study of The Illiteracy Effect in The Book of Eli and Learning to Read and Write by Frederick Douglass

The rising concern of illiteracy in the u.s and the benefits of educating kids, how education impacted frederick douglass's life, a study at how the constitution can help to improve cases of illiteracy in mexico, let us write you an essay from scratch.

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Telecom: The Answer to Pakistan’s Legal Illiteracy

Education was a key for frederick douglass's freedom, adult education program: literacy center, issues and problems involved in adult education program in pakistan, get a personalized essay in under 3 hours.

Expert-written essays crafted with your exact needs in mind

The Main Causes of Illiteracy

Causes and effects of illiteracy, relevant topics.

• School Uniform
• Academic Challenges
• Inequality in Education
• Academic Dishonesty
• Studying Abroad
• Critical Thinking
• Physical Education
• Stem Education
• College Experience

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

Definition and Meaning of Illiteracy

GlobalStock / Getty Images

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

Illiteracy is the quality or condition of being unable to read or write .

Illiteracy is a major problem throughout the world. According to Anne-Marie Trammell, "Worldwide, 880 million adults have been labeled as illiterate, and in the United States it is estimated that almost 90 million adults are functionally illiterate, that is to say that they do not have the minimal skills needed to function in society" ( Encyclopedia of Distance Learning , 2009).

In England, says a report from the National Literacy Trust, "Around 16 percent, or 5.2 million adults, can be described as 'functionally illiterate.' They would not pass an English GCSE and have literacy levels at or below those expected of an 11-year-old" ("Literacy: State of the Nation," 2014). 

Observations

"The subculture of illiteracy is larger than anyone on the outside would ever believe. The National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) conducted a study of illiteracy among adults in the United States in 2003, the results of which were released in December 2005. NAAL found that 43 percent of the total population aged 16 and older, or some 93 million people, ranked at the below-basic or basic level in their reading skills. Fourteen percent of the adult population had below-basic skills in reading and understanding prose texts , a percentage that was unchanged from 1992 when the first NAAL report was released." "The gap between the 43 percent at below-basic and basic prose literacy and the 57 percent at intermediate and proficient raises the question: How can those at lower levels compete in a world that demands increasing literacy skills? Not surprisingly, the NAAL study found that among adults with below-basic prose literacy, 51 percent were not in the labor force." (John Corcoran, The Bridge to Literacy . Kaplan, 2009)

Illiteracy and the Internet

"As teenagers’ scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading, diminishing literacy , wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books." "But others say the Internet has created a new kind of reading, one that schools and society should not discount. The Web inspires a teenager who might otherwise spend most of her leisure time watching television, to read and write." (Motoko Rich, "Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?" The New York Times , July 27, 2008)

Literacy as a Continuum of Skills

" Illiteracy has fallen from one in five people to almost nonexistent over a century and a bit. But 'illiteracy' clearly isn’t a single on-or-off switch. It’s not just 'you can read and write or you can’t.' Literacy is a continuum of skills. Basic education now reaches virtually all Americans. But many among the poorest have the weakest skills in formal English." "That combines with another fact: more people are writing than ever before. Even most of the poor today have cell phones and internet. When they text or scribble on Facebook , they’re writing. We easily forget that this is something that farmhands and the urban poor almost never did in centuries past. They lacked the time and means even if they had the education." (Robert Lane Greene, "Schott's Vocab Guest Post: Robert Lane Greene on Language Sticklers." The New York Times , March 8, 2011)

• How to Assess and Teach Reading Comprehension
• 5 Ways to Improve Adult Literacy
• Adult Education
• online reading
• Defining and Understanding Literacy
• A Guide to Deep Reading
• Descriptivism in Language
• Definition and Examples of Online Writing
• Cohesion Exercise: Building and Connecting Sentences
• The Internet Craze
• Multiple Literacies: Definition, Types, and Classroom Strategies
• How to Solve Exponential Decay Functions
• Diglossia in Sociolinguistics
• 10 Differences Between the SAT and ACT Exams
• Designing for the Blind
• Myers-Briggs Personality Types: Definitions and Examples

(Il)literacy

• Posted September 5, 2012
• By Lory Hough

It's an idea that's been around for a long time: The more formal schooling a mother gets, the better off her children's health will be. Educated women get prenatal care, boil their water, and take sick kids to the doctors. Illness decreases. Survival increases.

Study after study in public health, particularly in the developing world, has shown this to be absolutely true.

And yet, surprisingly, for many years, no one ever quite figured out why or how this happened. There were theories, of course. Education empowers women, who still serve as the primary caretakers for children. It liberates them from traditional bonds like family influence and old wives' tales. It improves status and access. However, few researchers actually gave much credit to the learning itself, assuming many schools in developing countries were of such low quality that they couldn't possibly be teaching useful skills to women.

Even Professor Emeritus Robert LeVine and his wife, Sarah, an anthropologist and former researcher at the Ed School, couldn't quite put their fingers on the school-health connection when they started looking at women's schooling, fertility, and child mortality in the early 1980s with the Ed School's Project on Maternal Schooling. As the LeVines and three Ed School alumni, Beatrice Schnell-Anzola, Ed.M.'86, Ed.D.'01, Meredith Rowe, Ed.M.'99, Ed.D.'03, and Emily Dexter, Ed.M.'90, Ed.D.'00, ask in their new book, Literacy and Mothering: How Women's Schooling Changes the Lives of the World's Children , "What is it about schooling that affects child survival, fertility, and the behavioral development of children?"

For nearly a decade, their guesses about that link between going to school as a young girl — even for only a few years — and behavior later as a mother that positively affects children's health focused primarily on attitude and behavior. Educated women feel more assertive, for example. But early on in the project, LeVine says, "We didn't have an account of what happens in the classroom that could explain later health and fertility outcomes."

And then, while planning to partially replicate a previous research project done in Cuernavaca, Mexico, an Ed School student, Patricia Velasco, C.A.S.'84, Ed.D.'89, suggested they look into literacy as a possible explanation — an aspect of schooling "strangely neglected," LeVine says. Velasco was studying under Ed School Professors Catherine Snow and Jeanne Chall, experts on language and reading.

At first, LeVine says he "pooh-poohed" the suggestion. As he writes in the book, "We were frankly skeptical that literacy or any other cognitive outcome of schooling could account for the impact of schooling on the maternal behavior that led to diminished fertility and mortality. We were inclined to believe" — as had earlier researchers focused on attitude and behavior — "that schooling empowered girls, influencing their aspirations for themselves and their children, their ability to assert themselves, and their sense of self-worth, regardless of what they learned in school." In part this was because many schools in less-developed countries employed poorly trained teachers and lacked basic equipment. It was reasonable to assume, LeVine says, that only limited literacy skills could be learned in those environments, and that retaining those skills many years later when these girls became mothers was uncertain.

Still, he decided to add a literacy test that Velasco helped create to the new Mexico project, mostly, he says, to prove "once and for all" that literacy didn't have an effect.

What they found from their initial work was surprising.

"The results came out exactly the opposite from what I expected," LeVine says. "The more schooling, the more literacy skills." But even just a couple of years in the classroom as young girls made a difference in what was used later, as mothers, to make informed health choices for their children. "The data was absolutely unequivocal. We thought: Now we finally have the intervening variable."

From that point on, maternal literacy became the project's main focus.

"It's not a model I'd recommend," LeVine jokes about the project's path, "but it worked for us."

And it worked through four studies in four different countries: After Mexico, they interviewed mothers in Zambia, Venezuela, and Nepal. The areas were chosen, in part, for their diversity, and also because there were Ed School doctoral students who had lived or worked in each of these countries, like Kathleen Stuebing, Ed.M.'89, Ed.D.'94, who taught for many years in Zambia, and Nepal native Arun Joshi, Ed.M.'86, Ed.D.'98, who showed up at LeVine's Cambridge office one day, urging him to include Nepal in the study. Schnell-Anzola, from Venezuela, became the invaluable point person in her country. LeVine says these students were critical to the success of the project, especially when doing fieldwork, which Sarah primarily directed, supervised, and coordinated.

"You need to find local informants in each community," LeVine says. The informants helped him and the team cast a wide enough net to find women in each country with varied amounts of schooling.

"As anthropologists, we needed to identify a village or urban neighborhood where there was a mixture of mothers," he says, noting that his team went door-to-door asking questions and looking for mothers of children three years old or younger. "If you're only talking to women who all have six years of education, that's no good."

It was particularly challenging in Nepal, where, at the time of the study, the mean number of years of schooling for women 25 years or older was less than one year. They often found entire villages where women had no education at all. Still, LeVine says they managed to find some diversity: Joshi found a village outside of Kathmandu that had women varying in the number of years they had gone to school, and Sarah found an urban neighborhood with similar variety.

Once the right mix was found, each mother was interviewed by the researchers, covering a range of topics like socioeconomic and educational backgrounds; the schooling of their parents, husbands, and siblings; reproductive and health behavior; knowledge of child development; and attitudes toward their children.

Language and reading skills were assessed, primarily using tests created by Snow and Chall as well as existing science textbooks and passages developed in collaboration with local pediatricians. This included reading comprehension, with women reading silently and out loud to researchers to determine if the women were only decoding words — breaking up words into understandable parts — or actually reading, and how much was understood. Mothers were also asked to identify nouns common in each culture by answering the question, "What is a … ?" Responses were scored based on how simple or complex the definition was. Answering that a dog is an animal that barks , for example, would have scored higher than simply: A dog is a dog .

Another test involved each mother recounting a health crisis involving one of her children — a simulation of how she would tell the story in a clinic. Her narrative was analyzed and scored on how well the researcher could follow what she was saying.

In Venezuela and Nepal, researchers also looked at functional literacy — the ability of the mothers to do everyday tasks such as tell time and read food labels or prescriptions.

All of the tests were tailored to each population, using native languages and common objects. This was a time-consuming, but critical, part of the fieldwork, LeVine told the Harvard Gazette in 1997, just prior to starting the study in Nepal, in urban and rural communities.

"The patterns of communication are different in each culture and setting," he said, noting that students from each country, like Clara Sunderland Correa, Ed.M.'83, and Medardo Tapia Uribe, C.A.S.'82, Ed.D.'89, both natives of Mexico, helped make this possible.

"In that sense, this is totally a project of the school," LeVine says. "Our methods were taken entirely from Snow's and Chall's work and all of the students were Catherine's and Jeanne's students."

In each country, women were also assessed for their comprehension of public health messages. For example, mothers were played taped recordings of health messages that had been broadcast regularly on local radio stations. Except for those with no or very little education, they were also asked to read health-related information in publications and recount everything they could remember. In Mexico, there were radio messages about breastfeeding and playing with infants. In Nepal, one radio broadcast emphasized using oral hydration salts when a child has diarrhea. In Venezuela, mothers read campaigns about AIDS, family planning, and cancer.

Across the board, in every country studied, what they found was that women retain the literacy skills they learned as young girls in school — even when they attended lowquality schools only for a couple of years — and then use those skills later, as mothers, to understand and connect with public health information disseminated through the media and through healthcare workers. Their trust of this information, as well as respect for experts like doctors and nurses, also increases.

"This clearly shows that schooling actually affects a woman and she does something with that education," LeVine says.

As Sarah told the Gazette in 1997, "Schooling allows women to learn hygiene more quickly because schools introduce them to a different way of learning. At home, they learn primarily by watching and imitating, by apprenticeship, not by following verbal instructions," she said. "In school, however, students are given instructions on how to accomplish tasks — in a language very different from home conversation — which later facilitates the process of assimilating information."

Learning to trust experts is a big part of this leap for mothers, says LeVine.

"A pregnant woman is told by her doctor to get three injections of tetanus toxoid," he says, referring to a vaccine used to prevent neonatal tetanus, a massive killer of newborn children, especially in developing countries. "She gets her first injection. A doctor or nurse says you need to come back to complete the series. A woman with less education, she just won't come back. She doesn't understand the importance."

But for the sake of her children, she needs to. As Michael Cole, a professor of psychology and communication at the University of California – San Diego, wrote in the introduction to Literacy and Mothering , which recently won the 2013 Eleanor Maccoby Award from the developmental psychology section of the American Psychological Association, "Whether or not one has been to school for some length of time, raising children requires adult decisions about how best to feed and clothe the child and how to protect them from disease and injury. Adults must learn to whom they should turn for help when normal caretaking measures do not suffice."

Skeptics, LeVine says, question whether a mother who has only been in school for a year or two could possibly have learned something like the germ theory of disease.

"The answer is no," he says. "What she understands is that when a doctor — the expert — says do this , you do it. You don't have to have an intellectual understanding of the disease. I think of myself as a cancer survivor who had no more than a superficial knowledge of what was wrong with me and what was being done to combat it, but I followed the experts to a cure."

When asked about the assumption that more education actually makes people question authority, not follow it blindly, LeVine explains that modern institutions such as Western schooling make individuals more likely to question traditional authority — an older member of a family, for example. However, they also teach people to follow the orders of authorized experts, such as schoolteachers or doctors.

People "learn to learn," he says. "Questioning the authority of those in white coats is not what these women learned. Quite the opposite. And they're right. They need not know microbiology or other biomedical processes in order to be a good patient or even to provide sufficiently sanitary conditions for child health. They need the guidance of experts, and that's what bureaucratic institutions are designed to provide."

Mother as Teacher

In addition to learning in the classroom how to be a pupil, which improves child health and survival, LeVine and his team found that mothers also learn how to be teachers at home, which improves school outcomes for their children. Although one could argue that all mothers teach their children, regardless of whether they went to school or for how long, in Literacy and Mothering , LeVine argues that teaching in school involves adults talking to children, using language for instruction — a skill girls eventually adopt when they become mothers with their own children.

In Mexico, for example, mothers with more formal schooling responded more frequently when their 10- and 15-montholds babbled or looked at them by talking and looking back. Follow-up visits when the children were 30 months showed that toddlers whose mothers talked to them more at 15 months scored higher on a language development test.

Asked if he ever considered replicating the study in the United States, LeVine says they had hopes of studying the large Latino population in eastern Massachusetts, but the funding never came through.

"I'd still love to see that happen," he says.

He'd also love to see an overall expansion of the work that he and his team started, particularly in the fields of public health and demography. Despite working on this research for more than three decades now, he still considers this a pilot study.

"By now, I had hoped that other groups like USAID would take this research to a larger level," he says. "My hope is that they adopt our methods and test so many hypotheses that we were unable to test with our small samples. I want to see this replicated with 5,000 women."

From a public policy standpoint, LeVine says their work is important because it shows — despite what many in education don't want to hear — that even low-quality schools and attending for only a few years can have a positive impact, especially in developing countries. One study found that an average of only one to three years of women's schooling reduces early childhood mortality by 10 percent.

Rowe, now an assistant professor of human development at the University of Maryland, says this highlights the fact that obtaining literacy skills is a process that starts with oral language skills.

"That is, girls who may not have been in school long enough to achieve high levels of reading comprehension were still exposed to the academic language used in schools," she says. "Having some experience with this type of discourse — for example, following instructions — helps them to better navigate other bureaucratic settings in the future, such as healthcare settings. Policymakers should encourage girls to attend school, even if it is only for a few years, because every year makes a difference."

Eventually, improving the quality of what women are learning, especially literacy skills, will make an even bigger difference.

"We might see even more dramatic, positive effects," says Rowe, "across generations."

Photos taken by Sarah LeVine during the four-country project

Ed. Magazine

The magazine of the Harvard Graduate School of Education

Related Articles

Harvard EdCast: Immigrants Raising Children

The Diversity Bargain

Movies, Books, and "The Giver"

• Skip to main content
• Skip to secondary menu
• Skip to primary sidebar
• Skip to footer

ImportantIndia.com

Indian History, Festivals, Essays, Paragraphs, Speeches.

Illiteracy: Meaning, Causes, Effects, Consequences and Solutions

Category: Social Issues in India On October 15, 2016 By Victor

What is the meaning of illiteracy?

Illiteracy is a state whereby one is unable to read and write. In its simplest form, it can be defined as lack of any or sufficient education.

Sometimes people who have had very basic education also experience challenges in reading and writing.

Illiteracy can also mean ignorance or the lack of knowledge in a specific subject. For example, a person may have gone to school but does not know how to operate a computer. Such an individual has no literacy in computer and is known as computer illiterate. Nearly every job advertised requires one to have computer literacy due to the digitization of most processes at the workplace.

A mistake in reading or writing that is seen to be characteristic of an illiterate person is also referred to as illiteracy. For this definition, a speech or letter that has several errors can be said to be full of illiteracies.

Functional illiteracy, on the other hand, is used to describe a situation where a person has writing and reading skills considered inadequate to perform employment duties that demand reading and writing skills that go beyond the basic level.

The challenges of illiteracy cut across: *Gender *Age *Race *Geographical location *Cultures

What are the causes of illiteracy?

There are so many reasons why an individual can be illiterate. These are some of the causes of the inability to read or write:

1. Illiteracy among parents: Many illiterate parents do not put much emphasis on the importance of education. Several of those born to parents who can neither read nor write end up being illiterate. This is especially true in remote areas where many people in the older generation have not gone through formal education. The reverse is true for those who have been brought up by parents with an elaborate educational background. They realize the necessity of taking their children to school and therefore ensure that they receive a good education.

2. Lack of family support: This can be the cause of illiteracy more so where a child has difficulty reading or writing because of dyslexia. In a situation where the family does not understand the child’s condition, it may simply be assumed that he or she is not a bright person and maybe school is not meant for everyone. Supportive family members help a child overcome reading disability and go through formal education with minimal challenges.

3. Unemployment of the educated: Some people believe that the only reason someone should go to school is so that he or she can get a good job and make a good life. Without the promise of employment, education is not a necessity to them. In a country where many of the educated are unemployed, there may not be enough motivation for the illiterate to go to school. After all, they reckon, why would you spend so much money paying for your education when there is no promise of a return on investment? In countries where those who have gone to school have good jobs and reasonable incomes, there may be sufficient motivating factors for people to get rid of illiteracy.

4. Lack of awareness: In places where several members of the local population do not understand why it is important for them to go to school, the level of illiteracy may be high. Disinterest in the benefits of formal learning can also be caused by lack of awareness on the importance of going to school. The number of illiterate people in urban areas tends to be lower than that of those in rural areas. People in towns are more aware of the need to eliminate illiteracy, the challenges that arise from lack of education and the social benefits of being literate compared to those who live in the remote place.

5. Social barriers: Many social barriers such as restrictions on girls’ education in some societies lead to illiteracy among the affected segment of the population. Education of the girl child has been an issue in some parts of the world leading to the formation of different organizations focused on championing the education of women. Forcing children into marriage is another social issue that causes illiteracy in the community. Family or social norms where female education is not allowed also causes illiteracy. In societies where the caste system is still in force, those who fall into the wrong caste may not get the opportunity to go to school. They are condemned at birth to remain illiterate.

6. Lack of affordable education facilities: Those who live in very remote areas with few or no education facilities may remain illiterate. The nearest school might be found several miles away. Instead of going through the tiresome process of walking for long distances on a daily basis just to go to school, many choose to stay at home. Lack of access to education facilities in rural areas has contributed a lot to the high number of illiterate people in these places.

7. Poverty: Poor parents with low incomes find it difficult to pay school fees. They are forced to choose between providing basic needs such as food, shelter and clothing and taking their children to school. In countries where basic education is not free, the number of children who do not go to school tends to be higher compared to places where basic education is free and mandatory.

What are the consequences and effects of illiteracy?

What are the consequences of Illiteracy? How does illiteracy affect the life of an individual and the society? These are some of the effects and consequences of the inability to read and write:

1. Hinders economic and social progress: Illiteracy greatly inhibits the economic and social progress of an individual as well as that of the country. Education gives one the power to seek opportunities and pursue them. People who have gone to school or are well educated have the expertise and intelligence to make good investment decisions and drive the growth agenda of a nation. Illiteracy, therefore, hinders the development of the country.

2. Poverty: Illiteracy leads to poverty. Education equips one with the right skills and expertise for gainful employment. A person who has not gone to school and is unable to read and write may experience a hard time in finding a job especially in a world where the corporate environment is increasingly in demand for employees who are well-trained and can cope with an industry driven by technology. Without a reasonable source of income, taking care of the dependent family members may prove to be difficult.

3. Child marriage: This is also a problem that may come about due to illiteracy. Parents may fail to recognize the benefits of taking children to school to learn how to read and write. Instead, the girl child may be forced into early marriage. It may also be a means of raising money through dowry payments to support the rest of the family members. In a way, the girl child is viewed as a property in some cultures. They can be traded to help the family make ends meet. The practice is especially rampant in areas where a lot of people have not gone to school.

4. Difficult life: An illiterate person can lead a difficult life in so many ways. The inability to find gainful employment can subject one to a life of poverty with poor living conditions. There can be a lack of basic necessities such as good shelter, clothing and decent meals. Illiteracy can also make one a societal misfit more so in areas where many people have gone to school and have the ability to read and write. Such a person can be the center of ridicule and suffer from stress and low self-esteem. Without the ability to read and write, it can be hard to read instructions which in some cases may have dire consequences. They say ignorance is bliss but that is not true when a person’s life is on the line.

5. Social crimes: Through education, a person can cultivate some civic sense and develop behavior patterns that are socially acceptable. Illiterate people may engage in unlawful acts in the society due to lack of employment or simply as a result of being uncultured. In countries where the number of those who have not gone to school is high, social crime levels also tend to be high.

6. Underpayment, Underemployment, Unemployment: We live in a world where the job market favors people who are properly educated with useful skills to drive company growth. Many illiterate people are thus underpaid, underemployed or unemployed. They are unable to earn income and in many cases perform a lot of duties with little pay.

7. Intergenerational Illiteracy: The issue of illiteracy can cut across generations within a family. It can become cyclic in such a way that even the third or fourth generation family members suffer the same fate. Intergenerational Illiteracy mainly comes about because education is given little to no value in the family setup. The children that come along will thus see illiteracy as the norm and not make any effort to learn how to read and write.

What are the possible solutions to stop or control illiteracy?

1. Free education: The provision of free education in schools, colleges, and universities by the government can play a major role in reducing the level of illiteracy in a country by getting more people to school. Since some people fail to attend school due to lack of money to pay for the fees, offering free education can increase the number of people attending school and subsequently reduce illiteracy levels within a society.

2. Awareness: Creating awareness about the importance of education can help people understand why they need to go to school. Non-governmental organizations, government agencies, and other concerned parties should put in place deliberate measures to create awareness in the society and reduce the number of people who are unable to read and write.

3. Grants: Offering grants, subsidies, and scholarships can reduce the financial burden that parents and students bear in paying for education. It would make it possible for students to learn without interrupting their education due to lack of school fees. Parents would also channel the money that would have been used to pay for school fees towards other income generating projects. The cost of financing education can prove to be too high especially for those who live in poverty.

4. Late night classes: Working people can opt for late night classes. In this way, they can learn even as they earn income through their daytime jobs.

5. Free books: The government and different foundations can offer free books in schools to encourage students to develop a reading culture. Offering free books can also reduce the financial burden placed on parents in the provision of textbooks.

6. Digitization: Since we live in the age of technology and information, creating digital platforms for reading and learning can help reduce illiteracy in the society. It can also help take care of the challenge of shortage of education facilities. Digital libraries can provide a good platform for those who live far away from urban centers to expand their knowledge base and become more informed.

7. Lower educational cost: Even though education has its rewards, it is very costly to finance. Many graduates usually leave school with huge debts in the form of student loans. It makes saving and investing difficult. The cost of university education has been a key political and social issue in many nations. By lowering the cost of education, the government can make it easier for people to study up to the highest level possible.

• History of Mughal Empire
• Modern History of India
• Important India
• Indian Geography
• Report an Article
• Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, and Copyrights.

ChatGPT for Teachers

Trauma-informed practices in schools, teacher well-being, cultivating diversity, equity, & inclusion, integrating technology in the classroom, social-emotional development, covid-19 resources, invest in resilience: summer toolkit, civics & resilience, all toolkits, degree programs, trauma-informed professional development, teacher licensure & certification, how to become - career information, classroom management, instructional design, lifestyle & self-care, online higher ed teaching, current events, the lifelong impact of illiteracy.

Literacy deeply and persistently impacts access to education, economic development, and life outcomes. Even in our modern world, the numbers are startling. Millions — around the world and in our own country — remain functionally illiterate, reading below the basic level.

The International Literacy Association views “literacy as the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, compute, and communicate using visual, audible, and digital materials across disciplines and in any context,” says Dr. Bernadette Dwyer , President of the International Literacy Association . “The right to literacy is a basic fundamental human right. However, 750 million people around the world cannot read and write. Two-thirds of these are female. Despite some progress, gender disparity remains.”

The perpetuation of illiteracy leads to “heavy and often tragic consequences, via lower earnings, poorer health and higher rates of incarceration,” according to McKinsey & Company ’s The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America’s Schools .

Just how much is tied to our nation’s literacy level? You may be surprised.

The social impact

When a person struggles with reading, the social impacts are profound. A person who is unable to read may have low self-esteem or feel emotions such as shame, fear, and powerlessness. Students who struggle with literacy feel ostracized from academia, avoid situations where they may be discovered or find themselves unable to fully participate in society or government. Says Dwyer , “Literacy permeates all areas of life, fundamentally shaping how we learn, work, and socialize. Literacy is essential to informed decision-making, personal empowerment, and community engagement. Communication and connection are the basis of who we are and how we live together and interact with the world.”

A person who cannot read struggles to know their rights, to vote, to find work, to pay bills and to secure housing. All told, this complex struggle spirals outward, impacting future generations and our society. “Illiteracy impacts an individual’s opportunities to fully participate in a democratic society,” says Leigh A. Hall , professor and Excellence Endowed Chair in Literacy Education at the University of Wyoming. “It doesn’t just have a negative effect on that person’s life, but on the overall health and well-being of our country.”

The multigenerational impact

Illiteracy often passes from generation to generation, regardless of whether children attend school. “Many children around the world attend school but do not learn to read, write, or calculate… Many of these adults experienced such frustration as children that they deliberately avoid literacy-related activities in later life. When they have children of their own, they tend to communicate (often non-verbally) their negative feelings towards literacy and schooling to their children, and thus perpetuate an intergenerational cycle of illiteracy,” according to UNESCO’s “8 Learning Families – Intergenerational Approaches to Literacy Teaching and Learning.”

The connection between parental education and the literacy of their children has been examined in numerous studies. Research by the U.S. Department of Education found that “children who are read to at least three times a week by a family member are almost twice as likely to score in the top 25% in reading compared to children who are read to less than three times a week.”

Research in Social Stratification and Mobility (2010) also found that “children growing up in homes with many books get three years more schooling than children from bookless homes, independent of their parents’ education, occupation, and class.” When we disrupt the cycle of poverty and illiteracy, children are better able to overcome the limitations of the previous generation. “When individuals learn how to read, write, do basic math, and use computers, they have the power to lift themselves out of poverty, lower health care costs, find and keep sustainable employment, and ultimately change their lives,” according to ProLiteracy , an organization that addresses adult literacy.

The economic impact

It’s said that “people struggling with literacy are more likely to be poor, lack education, and miss out on opportunities to participate fully in society and the workforce,” according to Project Literacy. The statistics agree. The Brookings Institute has found that less than half of children living in poverty are ready for school at age five, compared to 75% of kids from families with middle to high incomes. Another study found that people with low literacy skills “had poorer health outcomes, including knowledge, intermediate disease markers, measures of morbidity, general health status, and use of health resources.”

In a stunning paper “Literacy and the Entry-Level Workforce: The Role of Literacy and Policy in Labor Market Success,” Dr. William C. Wood of James Madison University used data from the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) and noted that “low literacy is associated with a variety of unfavorable labor market outcomes. One striking fact is that those with the lowest literacy scores are 16.5 times more likely to have received public financial aid in the past year, relative to those in the highest literacy group. They are also more likely to be in the lowest measured wage group, working full-time but earning less than $300 per week.”

For poverty and literacy advocate and speaker Pamela M. Covington , the correlation between poverty and literacy is clear. “Years ago when I unexpectedly fell into poverty, my literacy skills were my ticket out. Had I been unable to read, it would have been impossible for me to so quickly extricate myself and children from the welfare system. I was able to because throughout my upbringing my parents had stressed the importance of literacy and learning.” Dr. Stephen G. Peters , International Literacy Association board member, author/speaker, and superintendent of schools in Laurens County Schools District 55 in South Carolina concurs. “Literacy is the vaccine for poverty. As such, illiteracy facilitates a multitude of negative pathways upon multi-generations and society as a whole.”

The educational debt

Knowing just how deeply etched the impacts of illiteracy are, and with an understanding of the systemic inequities that have led us here, we largely continue to press on in the pursuit of ever-increasing rigor and testing. The term “achievement gap” places blame on students for the inequalities mentioned in this article. Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings , in her paper “From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools,” rebrands the “achievement gap” as “educational debt.” The concept is that a debt is owed to our students who live under the residual and continued effects of racism, oppression, and poverty.

Says professor Leigh Hall , “Often the pressure is immense to have students perform well on state reading tests. In this model, the community that students come from is often ignored (and schools that serve high-poverty students are often marginalized and not given the support they need to do their jobs well). We need to tackle two things in order to work towards solving the problem of illiteracy: (a) poverty and (b) creating partnerships between schools/teachers and the communities they serve. Helping all students achieve a high level of literacy requires a concentrated effort from all stakeholders and needs to move beyond focusing on test scores.”

Jennifer L.M. Gunn spent 10 years in newspaper and magazine publishing before moving to public education. She is a curriculum designer, a teaching coach, and high school educator in New York City. She is also co-founder of the annual EDxEDNYC Education Conference for teacher-led innovation and regularly presents at conferences on the topics of adolescent literacy, leadership, and education innovation.

You may also like to read

• Why Kids and Teens Need Diverse Books and Our Recommended Reads
• Four Ways Common Core Standards Will Impact Classroom Teachers
• Understanding Literacy Difficulties vs. Disabilities
• 6 Effective Strategies to Motivate Reluctant Readers
• Media Literacy Includes Teaching the Power of Persuasive Language
• Strategies for Determining Importance in Nonfiction Texts

Categorized as: Tips for Teachers and Classroom Resources

Tagged as: Adolescent Literacy ,  English Language Development ,  Literacy ,  Reading Interventionist

• Online Education Specialist Degree for Teache...
• Online & Campus Customizable EdD Programs
• Online & Campus Master's in Environmental Edu...

Essay on Illiteracy for Students and Children in 1000 Words

In this article, you will read an essay on illiteracy for students and children. This persuasive essay includes its definition, situation, causes, solution and more. 

So, let’s start this essay on illiteracy…

Table of Contents

Introduction (Essay on Illiteracy – 1000 Words)

Here you will read how illiteracy is a curse in today’s era. How day by day illiteracy is killing people, by making them unemployed,  poor, and increased corruption in every field.

How illiterate people giving votes to unknown people and stopping the development of country. These are few examples of the situation, you will read more below in this article.

What is Illiteracy? – Its easy definition!

Illiteracy means ignorance and lack of knowledge. For example, a person goes to school but does not know how to operate a computer . Such a person has no literacy in computers, so he is illiterate in computer education.

But If a person or child does not take his education, and he doesn’t know reading and writing, thus he is an illiterate. And people tell this situation illiteracy.

Illiteracy in today’s era

Because of advanced technology and computer generation, people calling most of the old people who don’t know computer fundamentals as computer illiterate. Lots of village peoples still not able to read and write. Still, they are using their thumb stamp for various transactions and official works.

Today lack of adequate education not only makes people illiterate but also he will go 50 years back. As long as we do not educate them, they cannot read newspapers, circulars, notices , advertisements, posters and letters of dear ones. 

Female population makes up a major portion of the total illiterate population . In India, the female literacy rate is around 65 percent and the male literacy rate is 82 percent according to 2001 census. Therefore, women education is very important to eliminate illiteracy.

We see illiteracy to be maximum in SC, ST and other backward classes which not only are poor but also unaware, uncertain and unwilling to make their improvements in life. Illiteracy not only deprives us of economic development but it deprives us from minor success in life.

Remarkably, the Government of India is showing awareness on this occasion and setting up thousands of primary schools across the country. Today in most of the villages of India you will see a Government Primary school.

Government with UNICEF also giving a daily meal in schools to motivate poor people to send their child to school. It is also helpful in solving various nutrition deficiency diseases in children. Despite this, the government has declared primary education as free in all government schools.

Causes of Illiteracy 

1. uneducated parents.

Many illiterate parents emphasize little on the importance of education. Some parents of children are illiterate, who don’t know the importance of literacy.

Even today, there are some areas where many of the older generation have not even received an early education. So, we can say it still needs the root of education in India is still to be developed so that the tree of literacy will stands strongly.

2. Lack of family support

This also One reason for illiteracy can be so that where the child has difficulty reading or writing because of dyslexia, dysorthographia, etc… When the family understands the condition of the child. They do not get it, and children cannot get family support like this.

3. Poor family

Most of the poor family don’t send their child to school and college only because of lack of money. They could not pay a fee of the institute.

It is a major problem which happening in India during higher education of students. Not only poor but also middle-class families cannot pay an outrageous amount of fees asked from various institutions.

4. Lack of Books and other study materials

Some family only afford to educate their child but they can’t able to provide more and extra study materials to them. Which may cause school leaving and incomplete education of children’s.

Effects of Illiteracy

1. unable to read and write.

If an illiterate person unable to read and write he cannot reach his train seats, he will face difficulties everywhere. In this technology world, nothing work without education. 

2. People will cheat him

The moneylenders and the landlords cheat them by stealing their lands. People exploits illiterate peoples. Illiterates face difficulties everywhere at home and also outside. Even people cannot use new machines because of illiteracy.

Solutions to Stop Illiteracy Efforts to Reduce Illiteracy

1. making education free.

The Constitution (Eighty-sixth Amendment) Act, 2002 has included Article 21-A in the Constitution of India as a fundamental right to provide free and compulsory education to all children between the ages of six to fourteen.

But if the government increased it to colleges and university levels, it would make the country more independent by making more people literate. 

Since some people cannot enroll their children in school because of lack of money to pay fees. Hence offering free education can increase the number of people attending school and subsequently reduce the level of illiteracy in the society, thus incorporating this rule under the Right to Education in the Indian Constitution in the year 2003.

2. Awareness

Creating awareness about the importance of education can help people understand that they need to go to school. Many non-governmental organizations, government agencies and other related parties should create literacy awareness in the society.

3. Scholarships

Providing grants and scholarships can reduce the financial burden of poor and middle-class people to educate their children. Because of which there is some reduction in the school fees, so that the education of the students will complete without hindrance.

4. Night Classes

People who are workers can attend night classes. In this way, they complete their education and earn income through day jobs.

5. Free Books

Government can provide free books in schools to encourage and students to develop reading culture. Offering free books can also reduce the financial burden of their parents.

Not only the government but every educated people’s effort can eradicate illiteracy. Every effort made by all educated people can help to eliminate this danger from the root.

We should educate every person in India. Going to school plays a major role in mental and social development of a person. I hope you liked this persuasive essay on illiteracy.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

• About Project
• Testimonials

Business Management Ideas

Essay on Illiteracy in India

List of essays on illiteracy in india, essay on illiteracy in india – short essay (essay 1 – 150 words), essay on illiteracy in india – 10 lines on illiteracy in india written in english (essay 2 – 200 words), essay on illiteracy in india (essay 3 – 250 words), essay on illiteracy in india – for school students (class 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 standard) (essay 4 – 300 words), essay on illiteracy in india – with solutions (essay 5 – 400 words), essay on illiteracy in india – for college and university students (essay 6 – 550 words), essay on illiteracy in india – introduction, causes, drawbacks and conclusion (essay 7 – 600 words), essay on illiteracy in india (essay 8 – 800 words), essay on illiteracy in india – long essay for competitive exams like ias, ips and upsc (essay 9 – 1000 words).

Illiteracy is basically defined as the inability of a person to read and write. People with this inability and with lack of knowledge in a particular field or subject are called illiterates . Going to school and studying is such a common activity for most of us that sometimes we don’t realise what a privilege we have.

There are still places in our country where the children don’t even have the access to basic education. This, as well as other compounded factors, have led to a high rate of illiteracy in India.

Although there have been initiatives by the Government to reduce the rate of illiteracy in India, the goal is far from being achieved, therefore it becomes all the more necessary for the students of today to know more about illiteracy in India.

Hence we have come up with long essays for students which they educate them on the causes and the currents schemes in place to reduce the illiteracy in India.

Audience: The below given essays are exclusively written for school students (Class 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 Standard) and college students. Furthermore, those students preparing for competitive exams like IAS, IPS and UPSC can also increase their knowledge by studying these essays.

Illiteracy is like an internal disease of independent India. After attaining freedom, we found that our illiteracy is the main obstacle in our development. It feels such a shame that the country which was an ideal for other countries,has high illiteracy rate. Illiteracy in India is mostly prevalent in the rural areas. Few of the reasons for illiteracy in India include poverty, lack of quality education, illiteracy among women, etc.

“The Right to Education” act was passed in 2009, which specified that those children between 6-14 ages, will be given free education and all necessary things. Many other initiatives have been started by the Government to ensure that there is increase in the literacy rate in India. Today, literacy rate in India is at 74.04%. More efforts are still being made and finally there will be a day in future when illiteracy in India will be completely non-existent.

When it comes to illiteracy in India, the statistics could be staggering. There are so many people who have not been imparted even the basic education and their state is pitiable to say the least.

Reasons of Illiteracy in India:

When we are discussing illiteracy in India, it refers to the people who never went to school and were deprived of their right to education. While there are government schools and rules that say primary education is free for all, these rules are often not put into practise. Even in rural areas where the rules are put into practise, parents from poor families put their children to work so that they could assist in piling more income.

The Solution:

The only solution is to make people aware of the need for education. If we want our country to make good amount of progress, it is important for the citizens to be literate. Illiteracy in India is one of the grave problems which need to be remedied before it becomes too huge to handle.

So, try and create awareness campaign and let people know about their basic right to free education. Giving the right incentives might trigger the change which has become the need of the hour.

We hear a lot about ‘ illiteracy ’ in the developing countries. Illiteracy in India is a curse since it holds the people in complete darkness.

Illiteracy is basically defined as the inability of a person to read and write. People with this inability and with lack of knowledge in a particular field or subject are called illiterates.

India is the second largest populated country in the world and its illiteracy rate is also high. Although many initiatives and measures taken by the government have reduced illiteracy to a large extent, still, nearly 287 million people in India are illiterates. This hinders the economic progress of our nation and this must be eradicated.

Let us analyze the main causes for illiteracy in India and the ways to remove it from our society.

Causes for Illiteracy in India:

1. The root cause for high illiteracy rate in India is Poverty . Parents with poor financial background are unable to send their children even to government schools since they cannot afford to buy their books and other necessities.

2. Lack of awareness and gender inequality is another reason for illiteracy in India among girl children in most rural areas.

The first and most important welfare measure that the Government of India can do to its people is to remove illiteracy in India.

1. Education must be made free ; this must include fees, books, uniforms, food, stationeries and everything that the child needs.

2. Awareness programs on the importance of education must be conducted in each and every part of the country.

Conclusion:

“Mass illiteracy is India’s sin and shame and must be liquidated”. – Mahatma Gandhi

In order to uproot illiteracy from India, every citizen must jointly work together with a single motto – ‘Each one – teach one’

Illiteracy is the state of being unable to read or write. India is the home of largest population of adults who are illiterate in the world. There are 287 million people who are illiterate and they account for 37% of the global total. Even though the literacy rate has increased six times since the British rule, from 12% to 74%, still the population of the illiterates is highest. Although there is an achievement of increasing the literacy rate given the large population, however, it cannot be ignored that 1 in every 4 people in the country is illiterate and he/she cannot read or write.

Illiteracy in India is a complex problem with many reasons contributing to the issue. There is gender imbalance, income disparity, state imbalances, caste, technological barriers which lead to the illiteracy rate in the nation. Another reason behind this problem is the inadequate school facilities. The staff employed in most government schools are unskilled and inefficient. Lack of proper sanitation is another reason for children dropping out from schools. Commercialization of education is also one factor that has led to the declining state of education.

With the ever growing population, reducing illiteracy in India continues to be a challenge for our nation. Level of literacy and ability to attain education is the backbone of development in a country like India. It enhances the quality of life, awareness amongst population and skill levels in the society.

There are steps taken by the government to reduce illiteracy in India. In 1993, the Right to Education was incorporated in the Constitution. According to this, children have a fundamental right to free education. But the Right to Education still needs to be extended so that we reach not only the children but also include the adult population of the country. There are other policies and NGOs that focus on making the children and adults literate. “Teach India” is one such initiative. Its objective is to give a platform where the educated people can teach the unprivileged children.

Illiteracy in India is a huge obstacle in its economic growth. Actually, the condition of being incapable of writing or reading is known as illiteracy. There are so many people in India who are living under the darkness of ignorance due to illiteracy and get easily betrayed in other phases of life. It has turned out to be a big scar in the global image of India.

The illiteracy in India has deteriorated the backbone of the nation. It is not merely mystifying the Indian democracy gradually but increasingly also leading the huge democratic system of this nation to trouble.

Today, the Illiteracy in India is quite a big question for the government. It is very important to eradicate the branch and roots of the illiteracy in India for making the life of the people happy and flourishing.

Solutions to the Problem of Illiteracy in India:

To eliminate the problem of Illiteracy in India and to fetch the economic, social, as well as political developments, all the educated people and students must join their hands altogether in all probable manners. The following are few solutions to the problem of Illiteracy in India to some extent:

1. There are some great efforts by the U.N.O. for removing the issue of illiteracy in India which is an under-developed nation. In fact, they have also declared the year 1990 as the Global Literacy year.

2. The calendars and postal stamps have been issued by the central government for this purpose but such things are not adequate for advertising of literacy in a big nation like India.

3. The government should construct more schools all over India and there must be sufficient budgets in the State and Central government to overcome the issue of illiteracy in India.

4. There should be more efforts by the Indian government to bring each kid to the school. In fact, they should also prohibit the child labor to achieve this solution.

5. Charitable societies including the non-formal or formal educational organizations must help the poor people in becoming literate.

It is true to say that only government cannot handle the difficult mission of eliminating illiteracy in India. People have to volunteer to carry out this national obligation so that the drive of eradicating the illiteracy in India can turn into a huge mass movement. Assuredly, India can rank behind over the socio-economic development in comparison to the other nations if the intellectuals of the nations do not think sincerely over this harmful sickness of illiteracy in India.

Illiteracy in India is the biggest stigma on the socio-economic progress of modern times. Although the literacy rate in the country has enhanced to 74.04% (in 2011) from the 12% at the time of our independence in 1947. According to the 2011 census, the effective literacy rate for the males was 82.14% and for females, it was 65.42%.  Illiteracy in India has resulted in a negative impact on family planning and population control efforts in India. Although we are on our way to improve the literacy rate, but we are still behind as the world average literacy rate is 84%.

Reasons behind Illiteracy in India:

Poverty is one of the foremost problems faced by India for ages. Poverty becomes a root cause of the widespread illiteracy in India. Families who struggle for their daily bread cannot afford education for their children. Apparently these people tend to make their children work to cope with the financial problems.

Lack of School Facilities:

Illiteracy in India is proliferated as schools are out of reach for the underprivileged people living in rural areas. The schools in rural areas of India lack in various issues like the medium of transportation. Students in rural areas have to walk for miles to reach the school. Most of these schools are deprived of funds, qualified staff, proper seating arrangements, sanitation facilities, healthy food and education friendly environment.

Social Problems:

A large percentage of children are deprived of even basic primary school education due to major social problems like caste discrimination, child marriage, child labour. Illiteracy in India is accentuated by the huge gender bias exists against females in terms of education. A girl child is denied education by stating illogical reasons like her existence is only to take care of her family and kids.

Impacts of Illiteracy in India:

Illiteracy in India affects the personal growth of people and the economic progress of the country. Lack of education makes people unqualified for so many job opportunities. Living becomes difficult when they are not able to get jobs and earn money. Such people are unable to earn money and they incline to the crime world and earn living by unethical and wrong ways.

Steps Taken by the Indian Government to mitigate illiteracy in India:

Both Central and State Government have undertaken many initiatives and schemes to eradicate Illiteracy in India. The Sarva Shikasha Abhiyan operating since 2002 covers people who domains, especially elderly citizens and women to provide primary education. National Literacy Mission Program was implemented in 1988 to educate millions of people in India. Saakshar Bharat is another program which aims 80% literacy level at the national level, focusing on literacy among women. Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act is an act passed by the Parliament in 2009. It is a very instrumental law with a panoramic aim to mitigate illiteracy in India, where it safeguards compulsory education for children of age between 6- 14 years in top quality schools.

Illiteracy in India has been deeply rooted since ages. The country has tremendously derailed its process at the hands to severe illiteracy. The government of India and a large number of Non-Governmental Organizations are working hand in hand to spread the awareness on the importance of education. As responsible citizen we all must contribute to uplift our fellow countrymen and completely eliminate illiteracy from India.

Introduction:

Illiteracy in India is a huge problem. Illiteracy means the inability to read or write anything. Even when the person has acquired a basic education but is facing difficulty in reading and writing, he or she would be considered illiterate.

Compared to the other developed and developing countries in the world such as France, UK, USA, and Japan, the current scenario of illiteracy in India is quite poor. While we understand that for the wholesome growth of a country, education plays an indispensable role, for one or the other reason, we are lagging behind when it comes to dealing with the illiteracy in India.

Causes of Illiteracy in India:

Illiteracy in India is a combined outcome of many problems in our country. In fact, the reason why we still have such a high percentage of illiteracy in India points toward everything that’s wrong with our nation. Let’s take a quick look at the factors responsible for the issue of illiteracy in India.

The first reason is the enormously growing population in the country. Every time we cross another milestone in population growth, the gap between the number of people to be educated and the volume of available resources increases. In other words, the resources created to educate people, fall short and this brings us back to the same endless loop of illiteracy in India.

Females make up for around half of the population in India. That means when girls and women are not getting an education due to gender discrimination, half of the nation is being deprived of the education. This is another great contributor to illiteracy in India.

The cultural backwardness in the rural areas, poverty, and lack of awareness are equally to blame for the curse of illiteracy in India. Either the parents are unaware of the importance of education or they are too poor to manage for their bare minimum necessities, let alone the education of their kids. So, the problem of illiteracy in India remains as it is.

Drawbacks of Illiteracy in India:

Honestly, it is beyond our imagination to fathom all the consequences of illiteracy in India. We are paying grave prices on economical fronts already. The lesser education ratio we have, the lower is the national income of the country.

Diving deeper into this context, take a moment and picture what the kids and youths would grow up to be under these current circumstances of illiteracy in India. India would have an intellectually toothless and gullible generation with no thought process of its own.

With zero education to back them up, what chances do our young ones have when they begin to look for a source of earning? Nil. It is easy to see how the illiteracy in India would certainly impact each and every aspect of their lives like health, employment opportunities, family planning, etc., and hinder their overall progress.

How to Overcome the Problem of Illiteracy in India:

In order to break the evil spell of illiteracy in India, we need to take some strong steps according to the nature of the obstacles. For instance, the poverty factor can be dealt by providing free education and books (new or used), scholarships to lower the rate of illiteracy in India.

We can have a provision of night classes for the adults as well. With proper resources, opening more schools in rural areas is an effective solution for illiteracy in India.

Enhancing the quality of education and providing efficient teachers are also some of the measures to overcome illiteracy in India.

Fighting illiteracy in India would be easier by creating more awareness among the common people. When the public would understand the value of education, the rate of illiteracy in India would fall down naturally.

Illiteracy in India is a very serious problem, which will even affect the development of our country. Our literacy rate has increased massively when compared to those at the time of independence, but it is not a cent percent improvement when compared to the population rate. There are many reasons for this unhealthy illiteracy in India, and the effects they cause individually and nationally.

This increase in literacy rate also includes those who can just read two or three alphabets and those are not properly literate. There should be well maintained and standard education offered to every single child born, to avoid this state of illiteracy in India, which will, of course, reflect in the nation’s development.

Reasons for Illiteracy in India:

1. Population and Poverty – The increase in population rate is one of the major cause for illiteracy in India. Population growth has made it too much difficult to fulfil all the needs ultimately to all children in our country. Illiteracy in India, especially in rural areas is to the peak that people in such areas don’t get access to even basic primary education due to the ignorance of the population increase.

The rising number of students has also considerably increased the demand for more educational institutes like schools, colleges, libraries, laboratories, hostels, etc. Lack of a quality educational system that reach the poor hands, when compared to urban areas is also an important reason for illiteracy in India.

Illiteracy in India is also due to the growing poverty rate. Even though government and private owned institutes are available in almost all Indian cities and rural areas, due to poverty many families refuse their children to attend school. Instead of education, they choose labor works for their kids so that they can earn a living that results in illiteracy in India.

Those people who are rich and with resources will get their children educated easily from standard institutions, but those who are unaware and less with resources will opt for jobs rather than educating their kids. Unemployment can also be related to illiteracy in India. When the parents lack regular income, which helps them to afford the children’s education, the family will face poverty and also illiteracy in India will increase.

2. Unhygienic and Unhealthy Environment – This can also be considered as a crisis and the increase in population causes illiteracy in India.  Illiteracy in India is a direct outcome of the irresponsible handling of the educational institution that will force parents and society to avoid those places. Institutions with unhygienic washrooms, improper seating and classroom facilities, unhealthy canteens or food items will affect the rate of illiteracy in India. Such conditions will discourage the children as well as their parents from continuing their education from the institution and due to their lack of affordability they won’t be able to opt for another school or college.

3. Gender and social discrimination – A massive and undeniable cause for illiteracy in India is the backward thinking of dominating citizens. Education is almost denied in India for backward classes due to their caste difference and gender difference.

A lot of schemes and policies are initiated to avoid this condition but the unawareness of people in remote areas has increased the illiteracy in India. Child marriage and thoughts like girls are meant for household works has impacted on the literacy rate. In many rural villages and even in some urban cities, girls are denied education just because of their gender and this in turn increases the illiteracy in India.

4. Low-quality education – Lack of qualified and dedicated teachers and professors are another reasons for illiteracy in India. This will result in the degradation of the knowledge children acquire from such teachers and will result in low-quality education.

Effects of Illiteracy in India:

Illiteracy in India is a major cause of the nation’s slow growth and development. Lack of qualified education and basic knowledge has resulted in a lack of economic growth as well. Literate and talented students are the future of our country. They are the people who will help in our country’s growth.

The personal and mental growth of a person is also affected by education. Illiteracy in India has also caused many major crimes from evolving and reduces the social awareness of a person. Illiteracy in India and its unawareness create lack of discipline and social behavior in people which in turn results in unethical characteristics in them.

This cause of illiteracy in India can also be as a result of the difficulty in earning a living which will eventually lead the people to carry out their lives in such irresponsible ways.

Illiteracy in India can be reduced by offering more standard and affordable educational institutions that are easily available and reached by both rich and poor.

Illiteracy in India has always been one of the major concerns for socio-economic reforms in the country. In fact, India is a country with one of the most illiterate populations in the world. In order to make India compete with the global population, it is necessary to focus on the reduction of the rate of illiteracy in India.

Definition:

The ability to read and write is what defines a literate person and explains what literacy is all about. A person who is unable to read and write is called an illiterate person.

India is a country where more than half of the population is engaged in agriculture leading to illiteracy in India. In fact, the percentage of this population was 75% of the overall population until the last decade. However, with the increase in urbanisation and acceptance of modern techniques and occupations, there has been a shift with people opting for other occupations as well other than agriculture.

Moreover, among the total population, the percentage of illiteracy in women is far higher than that of men. This is because women in India, especially in the rural regions are dependent on the men for most of their activities. That is why women are not encouraged to go to schools and study and hence contribute to the high rate of illiteracy in India.

Another factor which has largely been responsible for the lack of interest in people being literate is the technology of agricultural practices in India. Most of the agricultural practices in India have been basic in nature. Therefore, the need for being educated to use the new technologies has not bothered the general population of the country. However, with the onset of the green revolution, there has been an increase in the farmers being literate since the last decade.

Lack of educational facilities is another contributor to the high rate of illiteracy in India. Even if the poor and the underprivileged want to study, there are not enough educational facilities available in the villages. For instance, there are still places in India where children have to walk for miles before reaching to school. In the absence of proper roads and transport facilities, they are often forced to skip school during extreme weather conditions. This itself takes out the motivation in them to study further.

Moreover, at the time India attained independence from the British on 15 th August 1947, it was struggling with means to give basic quality life to its citizens such as food, water and shelter. Therefore it took time for the subsequent governments to come up with schemes and policies in place to make the citizens of our country literate. Additionally, there is a wide disparity between the rich and the poor in our country. The high rate of illiteracy in India has widened this gap further.

Importance of Education as Mentioned in the Constitution of India:

The importance of education has been recognised by the Constitution of India as well. There have been different rules and regulations in place which protect the right of education of all the citizens of our country.

Education for minorities has always been a concern for all governments. The cultural and educational rights of the minorities are guaranteed under Article 30 of the Constitution.

Free and Compulsory Education for All is a right guaranteed under the Constitution of India. Equal educational opportunities are to be provided to all the citizens of the country is a factor governed under the Directive Principles of State Policy. It also finds mention in article 41, 45 and 46 of the Constitution of India.

All such laws are intended to remove illiteracy in India. However, the implementation of these rules has always been a challenge due to the different mindsets of the affected population.

Initiatives by the Government of India:

There have been many initiatives by the Government of India in order to decrease the rate of illiteracy in India. The government has come with various schemes and policies to this effect.

Free Education – In order to achieve its goal of reducing the rate of illiteracy in India, the Government of India has initiated free education, especially for the people in rural areas and the ones who belong to the below poverty line (BPL) category. In fact, this scheme is one of the successful schemes of the Government of India and has led to an increase the student enrolment in rural areas.

Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan – The Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan has been in implementation since the year 2001. This scheme focuses on elementary education in the country. Achievement of universal primary education has been the aim of this scheme. The scheme has found popularity both in rural as well as urban areas.

Through this scheme, the Government of India has the vision that if it is able to educate the children of our country, the rate of illiteracy in India of the current and future generations shall come down drastically. Other schemes such mid-day meals where children are provided food in the school are in place so that the poor parents need not to worry about the health of the children and allow them to study. Also, uniform and books are provided free of cost of the children have been in place in order to motivate the poor to send their children to school.

It is very sad that even after so many years of attaining freedom, there is still a high rate of illiteracy in India and we are far from becoming a fully literate country. People in rural areas are still struggling with basic facilities such as food, water and shelter. Education perhaps has taken a backseat due to the primitive mindsets of the people. However, there have been many initiatives by the Government which have been successful in evolving in people in rural areas.

Now people are more than ready to send their children to school. With the young generation becoming literate, the future of the next generations seems bright. But, people should also realise that they should utilise the facilities provided by the Government to the fullest and help in reducing the rate of illiteracy in India.

Education , Illiteracy , Social Issues

Get FREE Work-at-Home Job Leads Delivered Weekly!

Join more than 50,000 subscribers receiving regular updates! Plus, get a FREE copy of How to Make Money Blogging!

Message from Sophia!

Like this post? Don’t forget to share it!

Here are a few recommended articles for you to read next:

• Essay on Child Labour
• Essay on Gender Equality in India
• Essay on Child Marriage in India
• Which is More Important in Life: Love or Money | Essay

No comments yet.

Leave a reply click here to cancel reply..

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Billionaires

• Donald Trump
• Warren Buffett
• Email Address
• Free Stock Photos
• Keyword Research Tools
• URL Shortener Tools
• WordPress Theme

Book Summaries

• How To Win Friends
• Rich Dad Poor Dad
• The Code of the Extraordinary Mind
• The Luck Factor
• The Millionaire Fastlane
• The ONE Thing
• Think and Grow Rich
• 100 Million Dollar Business
• Business Ideas

Digital Marketing

• Mobile Addiction
• Social Media Addiction
• Computer Addiction
• Drug Addiction
• Internet Addiction
• TV Addiction
• Healthy Habits
• Morning Rituals
• Wake up Early
• Cholesterol
• Reducing Cholesterol
• Fat Loss Diet Plan
• Reducing Hair Fall
• Sleep Apnea
• Weight Loss

Internet Marketing

• Email Marketing

Law of Attraction

• Subconscious Mind
• Vision Board
• Visualization

Law of Vibration

• Professional Life

Motivational Speakers

• Bob Proctor
• Robert Kiyosaki
• Vivek Bindra
• Inner Peace

Productivity

• Not To-do List
• Project Management Software
• Negative Energies

Relationship

• Getting Back Your Ex

Self-help 21 and 14 Days Course

Self-improvement.

• Body Language
• Complainers
• Emotional Intelligence
• Personality

Social Media

• Project Management
• Anik Singal
• Baba Ramdev
• Dwayne Johnson
• Jackie Chan
• Leonardo DiCaprio
• Narendra Modi
• Nikola Tesla
• Sachin Tendulkar
• Sandeep Maheshwari
• Shaqir Hussyin

Website Development

Wisdom post, worlds most.

• Expensive Cars

Our Portals: Gulf Canada USA Italy Gulf UK

Privacy Overview

Essay on Illiteracy in India

Students are often asked to write an essay on Illiteracy in India in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Illiteracy in India

Introduction.

Illiteracy is a major issue in India, affecting the nation’s development. It refers to the inability to read or write.

Illiteracy is primarily due to poverty, lack of educational facilities, and gender inequality. Many children can’t attend school due to economic hardship.

Illiteracy leads to unemployment and poverty, creating a vicious cycle. It also hampers social and economic growth.

Government initiatives, NGOs, and society can play a crucial role in eradicating illiteracy. Education must be accessible and affordable to all.

Tackling illiteracy is vital for India’s progress. Everyone deserves the right to education.

250 Words Essay on Illiteracy in India

India, despite its significant advancements in various sectors, continues to grapple with the issue of illiteracy. A sizable portion of the population lacks basic reading and writing skills, which poses a significant barrier to the nation’s socio-economic development.

The Extent of Illiteracy

According to the 2011 census, India’s literacy rate was 74.04%, leaving approximately a quarter of the population illiterate. This figure, however, masks disparities across regions, genders, and social groups. Rural areas, women, and marginalized communities are disproportionately affected, reflecting deep-rooted social inequalities.

Underlying Causes

The causes of illiteracy in India are multifaceted. Poverty plays a significant role, forcing children into labor at a young age and denying them educational opportunities. Additionally, inadequate school infrastructure, particularly in rural areas, contributes to high dropout rates. Furthermore, societal norms and gender biases often restrict girls’ access to education.

The Impact of Illiteracy

Illiteracy hampers individuals’ potential and restricts their access to opportunities. It perpetuates poverty and social inequality, hindering India’s progress towards its development goals. Illiterate individuals are more likely to suffer from poor health, low income, and social exclusion.

Addressing illiteracy requires a comprehensive approach that encompasses improving school infrastructure, promoting gender equality, and alleviating poverty. Only by ensuring that every citizen is literate can India fully harness its human potential and achieve sustainable development. The fight against illiteracy is not just about teaching people to read and write; it’s about creating a more equitable society where everyone has the chance to thrive.

500 Words Essay on Illiteracy in India

Introduction: the landscape of illiteracy in india.

Despite India’s significant economic progress, the country is still grappling with the issue of illiteracy. According to the 2011 census, India’s literacy rate stands at 74.04%, indicating that a significant portion of the population remains illiterate. Illiteracy is a complex issue that stems from a variety of social, economic, and cultural factors.

The Root Causes of Illiteracy

The roots of illiteracy in India can be traced back to numerous factors. Socioeconomic disparities, gender inequality, and inadequate infrastructure are among the primary contributors. Poverty often forces children out of school and into labor, thus perpetuating the cycle of illiteracy. Similarly, gender discrimination often leads to the denial of education for girls, contributing to the high rate of female illiteracy.

The lack of quality educational infrastructure, particularly in rural areas, is another significant factor. Many schools lack basic facilities, qualified teachers, and teaching materials, leading to high dropout rates and poor learning outcomes.

The Consequences of Illiteracy

Illiteracy has far-reaching implications for individuals and society. It hinders personal growth, restricts economic opportunities, and perpetuates social inequality. Illiterate individuals often end up in low-paying jobs, leading to a life of poverty and deprivation. Furthermore, illiteracy affects civic participation as it limits the understanding of democratic processes and rights.

At the societal level, high illiteracy rates impede economic growth and social development. It restricts the country’s human capital and hampers innovation and productivity. Moreover, illiteracy exacerbates social issues such as population growth and health problems, as illiterate individuals often lack awareness about family planning and healthcare practices.

Strategies to Combat Illiteracy

Addressing illiteracy requires multifaceted strategies. Firstly, improving access to quality education is crucial. This involves enhancing the school infrastructure, training teachers, and ensuring availability of teaching materials.

Secondly, eradicating gender and social disparities in education is essential. This could be achieved through policies that incentivize the education of girls and marginalized groups.

Thirdly, adult education programs need to be strengthened to provide literacy skills to those who missed out on formal education. These programs should be flexible, relevant, and linked to livelihood opportunities to ensure their effectiveness.

Conclusion: The Way Forward

The issue of illiteracy in India is complex and deeply entrenched. However, with concerted efforts from the government, civil society, and individuals, it can be overcome. The key lies in understanding that literacy is not just about reading and writing, but about empowering individuals with the knowledge and skills to improve their lives and contribute to society. As Nelson Mandela rightly said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Indian Festival
• Essay on Human Rights in India
• Essay on Electric Vehicles in India

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Home / Essay Samples / Education / Illiteracy / Illiteracy in Pakistan: Causes and Solutions

Illiteracy in Pakistan: Causes and Solutions

• Category: Education , World , Life
• Topic: Illiteracy , Pakistan , Problems

Pages: 8 (3598 words)

Views: 3248

• Downloads: -->

Introduction

Illiteracy in pakistan.

• Parents with little schooling;
• Lack of books, stationary and other staff
• Lack importance of reading and writing
• Showing bad performance in studies and then dropping out of school — many have not completed high school;
• Difficult living conditions
• Learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, dysorthographia, etc.

Problems caused by illiteracy

Illiteracy rates, recommendations, conclusions.

--> ⚠️ Remember: This essay was written and uploaded by an--> click here.

Found a great essay sample but want a unique one?

are ready to help you with your essay

You won’t be charged yet!

Adversity Essays

Kindness Essays

Empathy Essays

Inspiration Essays

Hope Essays

Related Essays

We are glad that you like it, but you cannot copy from our website. Just insert your email and this sample will be sent to you.

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service  and  Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Your essay sample has been sent.

In fact, there is a way to get an original essay! Turn to our writers and order a plagiarism-free paper.

samplius.com uses cookies to offer you the best service possible.By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .--> -->