The meaning & origins of literacy

A.R. Fishman offers a discussion of the subject in terms of the Amish community, where reading aloud is a family activity, with the father reading as the rest of the family listens. This might seem to many to be a perfect example of parents who read to their children as a way of getting those children to become readers themselves and to excel in school, but in fact the Amish father does not expect his child to go any further in school than he did himself, to the eighth grade. Literacy is important in the Amish household, but literacy has a specific and somewhat different meaning in that household than it the meaning given it in

. . .
the major examples of solitary reading in many communities. The children in the fundamentalist church and those in the Amish community are both raised in a literate environment, surrounded by literate adults and printed materials. The text is seen by both communities as the source of divine inspiration and practical information. Both communities also make a similar distinction between sacred and secular texts and their relative importance. Reading aloud is also common to both situations. It is less clear that literacy is seen here as a change from orality than that it is an adjunct to it, for in both communities literacy and orality are more closely related than they are in mainstream education, where at some point oral reading becomes more unusual and less the norm. Neither study addresses what this might mean in terms of the view of or power of literacy in these communities, though the issue is hinted at by both without being fully addressed. The importance of the oral tradition is apparent not only in the fact of reading aloud but in the singing that is an expression of religious conviction and acceptance. The oral tradition has a particular importance in the fundamentalist setting because of the way the text is treate
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Carolyn Zinsser, Literacy Amish, Reading Amish, AR Fishman, Phoenicians Greeks, , amish community, Language Arts, development literacy, reading aloud, literacy seen, literacy hypothesis, Cambridge Press, Norwood Ablex, literacy amish, cultural tradition, amish literacy, fundamentalist church, oral preparation literacy, origins literacy, amish community reading, reading aloud family, western cultural tradition,
Approximate Word count = 1635
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

More Essays on The meaning & origins of literacy