The Practice of Literacy

Literacy is not something to be achieved once and left behind. It is an ongoing battle. People had to learn at the beginning and must continue learning for it to remain effective. A language requires daily effort, no matter what language it is (although second languages may require a bit more effort).

We may be exposed to English every day, but exposure is not enough. Scrolling through social media posts or texting doesn’t stretch your mind, it doesn’t grow your vocabulary, and it definitely doesn’t sharpen your thinking. It's usually quite mindless. To strengthen literacy, you need meaningful reading: texts that challenge us, unsettle us, and push us further than the quick words on a screen.

Reading builds vocabulary, opens the door to higher education, and can break cycles of poverty by offering people the skills they need to rise. The evidence is clear: literacy isn’t just about words, it’s about opportunity. Which makes this is current issue in society. Students who lived through the peak of COVID lost years of developmental reading practice, the little kids that ended up not doing their reading log don't read much today. It will damage their entire lives to not put the effort in now.

Literacy is also cyclical. Literate parents are more likely to raise literate children. And the reverse is true: if the cycle breaks, it can spiral downward. A family, a community, a generation can lose ground. That is why continuous effort matters. My whole family could be called bibliophiles, I think it's pretty neat. I'm quite confident that me and my brothers will encourage our kids to read. The cycle will go on.

I fear what happens to the brain without this exercise. If you don’t expose yourself to difficult texts, if you don’t make your neurons work, the mind softens. You can get a mushy brain. A hard book is not an enemy; it is the weight that strengthens the muscles of thought.

UNESCO calls literacy a “multiplier right” because it opens the door to so many other rights: education, work, cultural participation. Without it, those doors remain locked. With it, they swing wide open.