International Literacy Day – Everything You Need To Know

International literacy day is celebrated around the globe on 8 September.

What is Literacy?

The basic definition highlights an individual’s ability to read and write. Literacy in simple terms means how good you are in comprehending what you can read. Can you interpret a version of the story to another in your own words?

The lucky needs to feel fortunate to have these skills, what they think is only basic. People around the world have endured long-standing hardships owing to not being able to attain them. The response to this crucial challenge that humanity faces saw the rise of International literacy day.

The Basic Idea

As efforts by world organizations and NGOs are made around the world to plant the seed of education in every barren mind, this day is there to acknowledge the progress made by the campaign and discover areas which need enhancements.

The goal is simple. The ultimate extinction of illiteracy from the world!

International literacy day is celebrated around the globe on 8 September.

Literacy is an important aspect of UN’s Sustainable Development goals. The sustainable development goals by UN put forth in 2015 plan on achieving extraordinary things by 2030. The objective is to “end poverty, promote prosperity and well-being for all, and protect the planet”

One of the prevalent goals is to provide every individual equivalent access to education and leaning opportunities all life.

The sustainable development goals strive toward providing the youth with basic literacy and numeracy. It also ensures the adults who lack these skills and offers a chance to seek them.

What is Special about International Literacy Day 2018?

2018 marks the 52^nd year since the day was formally announced to highlight and work towards the literacy development in the world.

It marks the efforts of the presiding authorities and whoever in the position to contribute to improving the policies governing literacy. The world organization takes time to address the challenges concerning literacy and draw attention to the improvements in literacy rates.

The theme for International literacy day 2018 is “Literacy and Skills Development”.

Challenges still prevail in the development of literacy. Having said that, the requirements for skills are rising rapidly, adding hopes to the same picture.

UNESCO plans on highlighting the youth and adult section under lifelong learning framework. Skills and literacy are well thought to be connected and potentially resourceful when combined.

Amalgamation of ideas pertaining to skills and literacy would ensure the development of societies and foster equity and sustainability at the same time.

The aim is to create a competent and sustaining individual with skills for employment, livelihood, professional development. Enhancements in technical, digital and transferable skills also claim to be a major part of the endeavor.

How each of us can celebrate this day?

This literacy day will see unexplored corners of creativity as the governing bodies around the world have young minds actively working at creatively emphasizing the role of skills in development of learning.

Other events can include inviting people for reading sessions, erecting a word wall’ for eg. a wall of technical jargon and pictures, designing collages.

How do we interpret the theme “Literacy For Skills Development?

It could mean anything from connecting students to what is being taught through jargon and other resources to handling digital devices. The motive is to prep the individuals to develop basic skills demanded by every job in the present world.

Blending in Technology

Here are a Few Apps that might help Brighten the literacy day

Ukloo

This app has a fun literacy game where in you are required to find word clues. This app helps enhance a kids observation while helping them learn new words and also helps them understand sentence structure.

Playtales Gold! Kids’ Books

A compendium of virtual story books for kids. Playtales is designed to encourage kids to learn new vocabulary, numbers, pronunciation, spellings and lot more.

Mad Libs

The name justifies the crux of the app. You can pick crazy word choices, feed it into the app and create fun stories. This will feed the creative bug and also keep the vocabulary alive

iBooks

The app has a large collection of bestsellers, new generation authors and even audio books. This literacy day you can add a few good reads to your personal library.

Kids Learn to Read Lite

This is a wholesome app and entertaining for kids. Children can learn new things and ideas in a fun way.

Conclusion

The UNESCO figures state that 774 million adults are still devoid of basic literacy. One in five adult fails to comply to the basic terms of literacy and two-thirds of the population are women.

The success lies in the drop in these figures to the extent that in years to come, the day shall only be celebrated to commemorate the efforts taken around the world to end one big suffering of humanity.