Naife Subahi

 What does literacy mean to you personally?

    In my opinion literacy means the ability to read and write. Since I was born in Educated family in which my father, uncles, aunts and grandparents appreciate the value of education, my father started to teach me how to read once I was able to. He taught me the shape and the utterance of the Arabic letters. At the same time, he taught me how to write them. He used to dots the letters and asked me to trace them. This effort of teaching from my father side is to enable me to read and write. I think that reading comes in the first place of priority because of the Holy Quran recitation.

   However, reading was not fun. I mean, in school the reading teachers taught as reading through writing. In other words, I used to read the passage and rewrite it twice in my notebook. This activity kind of limits my desire for reading. In addition, the type of reading materials used to attract me to read. It is true that reading textbooks were not fun, but I kind of built my own library. I started to buy chapter books that I like and trade with my friends. Of course chapter books were actually stories that translated from English to Arabic. I remembered my mom scold me once for not reading my textbooks, and spent most of the time reading stories.

     I did not think of writing as much as reading. In my opinion, composition classes in Arabic were not effective or even close to the students. In other words, as students we have to write about abstract topics and things that has no relation to our lives. I think this was the reason behind the weakness in composition.

 

Why is literacy important to you?

   Literacy is important because it helps me to read, de-code and respond to written word. It makes me aware of the world that I live in, and makes the life easy. For instance, literacy helps me know how to sign my name, read and reply to letters, study good literature, read and understand political and socio-economic news and current affairs. It helps me keep pace with the world and probably be a part of its progress.

   I believe that there are some people who are sculptors, painters, dancers, and singers, who have contributed to the human community with their philosophy and productive art, but have never used written language as a medium. To put it simply, it is not the contribution, but the realization of how important is the contribution that makes literacy important.