What is literacy?

Understanding the significance of literacy goes far beyond its definition.

Literacy is essential. Without literacy, it’s hard to live the life you want. From your earliest years, literacy skills help you develop and communicate. But when you have a tough start in life, it’s easy to fall behind.

At school, having the literacy skills to read, write, speak and listen are vital for success. If you find these things hard, then you struggle to learn. It affects your confidence and self-esteem.

As an adult, without these same literacy skills, you can’t get the jobs you want, and navigating every day life can be difficult – from using the internet, to filling out forms or making sense of instructions on medicines or road signs. If you have children, it’s hard to support their learning, and so the cycle continues.

Low levels of literacy undermine the UK’s economic competitiveness. Each year group of 5-year-olds who do not meet the expected early years standard generate lifetime economic costs of around £830 million (Pro Bono Economics, 2024). A third of businesses are not satisfied with young people’s literacy skills when they enter the workforce and a similar number have organised remedial training for young recruits to improve their basic skills, including literacy and communication (CBI, 2017).