TEXT LITERACY

n.

The ability to read and write competently.

"As communication worldwide occurred increasingly through media other than text, educators and policymakers began, reluctantly but inexorably, to move beyond their historic obsession withtext literacyand place a higher priority on developing students' media literacy."

— Scott C. Shuler, "Music and Education in the Twenty-First Century: A Retrospective,"Arts Education Policy Review, January 1, 2001

"Stephenson also said a shifting emphasis in literacy, particularly with children who have become more adept at sorting out visual ideas driven by computers, may eventually do more harm than good.

'I think visual literacy and media literacy is not without value,' he said.'But I think plain old-fashionedtext literacyand mathematical literacy are much more powerful and flexible ways to organize your mind."

— Evan Ramstad, "Pushing the Edge With 'Diamond Age' Nano-Machines,"Associated Press, May 10, 1995

Traditionally, the wordliteracyhas been defined as "the ability to read and write to a competent level." In other words, being literate has always meant being able to handle text with reasonable facility. But literacy has also had a second sense: "Being knowledgeable in a particular subject or area of activity." This more general sense has led to specific types of literacy:media literacy,computer literacy,mathematical literacy(also callednumeracy), and many others. Over the past few years, these multiple literacies have created confusion around the single wordliteracy. Which literacy are we talking about? This confusion was, I believe, the reason why you now see the retronymtext literacybeing used more and more. (See the Word Spy entry forp-bookfor a brief discussion of retronyms.)

blurbification

dropout factory

jargon creep

jargon dyslexia

jargon gap

text

transliteracy

Writing

Retronyms

Education