November 26 , 2019 Oral Literacy versus Reading and Writing Literacy “For all intents and purposes neither of us should have learned to read (much less write) given our circumstances of birth and the home conditions of our formative years.” When I asked myself, “Says who?”, Zulmara and Necochea listed studies to support this assertion but they clearly didn’t adhere to them. Evidently the studies are one dimensional. Both authors write that the grew up in homes with little or no written literature and that reading and writing was not modeled for them. Yet, both became avid readers and writers. They suggest that a key to their success was having rich oral and storytelling traditions in their families. Based on what my father told me about his background, he did not have much of any type of literature in his sharecropper home in South Carolina. Yet, he became an avid reader, much of it self-taught, filled our home with books and magazines, and read at ...
