Literacy is one of the major issues that are recognized today in the world. It is worth noting that the aspect of literacy is linked to various issues in society. The literacy skills are a crucial pre-requisite to success. The literacy issues go beyond the understanding of decoding words and reading texts, it entails the ability to use literacy skill to comprehend global knowledge and synthesize information from various sources (Wasik, 2012). There are various literacy problems and issues in South Africa that can be compared with other nations. There is growing demand for diverse literacy skills. In South Africa, the aspect of diversity takes the centre stage on issues related to literacy.
One of the issues of literacy in South Africa is the issue of diversity. The issue of diversity has brought in various languages. In fact, compared to most countries English is the official language of educational institutions and government offices. The difficult arise as a result of diverse minority languages that are not recognized (Rowsell, 2006). The pre-colonial education in South Africa took the critical part in religion, beliefs, education, and socialization. It brought in a lot of discriminatory phenomena on issue related to literacy. The colonial education brought in the aspect of western literacy. One problem regarding literacy in South Africa is the fact that more of the communication was oral.
In South Africa, English is the dominant language on literary practices. This is not a unique scenario, since in most countries the texts and most of the reading materials are written in English. The artifacts that represent both the ancient and modern literacy is all put down in English. The English language dominates South Africa and it is associated to the economic and social aspects of society (Wasik, 2012). In families, there are no written materials and children literacy is predominately nature orally. As children grow they are exposed to literacy materials and get the influence of English and other literacy skills. The young receive a lot of literacy knowledge and skills from the oral literature passed by elders and parents. It is evident that, family literacy brings together various variables into place. The issues that influence family literacy in this case include socio-economic status, minority, as well immigrants.
References
Rowsell, J. (2006). Family literacy experiences: Creating reading and writing opportunties that support classroom learning. Portland, Me: Stenhouse Publishers.
Wasik, H. (2012). Handbook of Family Literacy. New York: Routledge
