Literacy is the ability to read and write. Not everyone can do that. In fact, more than 700 million people in the world can’t read and write. That’s more people than live in Canada, the United States, and Mexico combined!International Literacy Day, which is on September 8 each year, is a day for people who can read and write to help those who don’t know how. It’s also a day to enjoy and practice these two skills.Let’s look at why reading and writing are so important, then at how International Literacy Day came to be. After that, we’ll list a few ways to celebrate the day.When you began learning to read, you first learned the alphabet. Then you learned the sounds that the letters made. Soon you were able to spell simple words like dog, cat, ate, see, and run. It wasn’t long before you could read short sentences. The dog ate. See the cat run.You got better and better and soon were reading books. Books about your favorite sport or music group. Books about how to program a computer or bake cookies. Books about magical heroes or true-life detectives.Reading opened up a whole new world, allowing you to learn things and experience things simply by looking at words on a page.Imagine not being able to read. Not books, not signs, not birthday cards, not anything. Imagine not even knowing how to write your name.There are many reasons why people don’t learn to read and write. Maybe there are not enough schools in their country. Or their family is too poor. Or their culture or their tribe or the color of their skin prevents them from getting an education.International Literacy Day is a way to change that.International Literacy Day was started back in 1966 by an organization called UNESCO, which stands for United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.Instead of saying all those words each time, people just say UNESCO, making it sound like a word (u-NES-ko, rhymes with you MESS so).In 1945, near the end of World War II, 44 countries decided to create an organization — UNESCO — that would focus on peace and on helping built a better world. One of the goals of the new organization was to prevent another world war.To do that, UNESCO worked to improve three things in people’s lives: education; science, and the value of different cultures.Today, UNESCO has 193 member countries, divided into five regions: Africa; Arab states; Asia and the Pacific; Europe and North America; and Latin America.UNESCO’s various programs are grouped into five major efforts: Education; Natural Sciences; Social and Human Sciences; Culture; and Communications and Information.One of the most important parts of the Education effort is teaching people to read and write. If a person can’t do those two things, their lives and their ability to find work and earn a living are very limited. So UNESCO tries hard to make sure people everywhere get a chance to become literate.Here are some activities people do to celebrate International Literacy Day.Read aloud to someone. Most people, adults as well as children, like to be read to.Help young children learn and sing the ABC song. Let them try writing the alphabet, either on paper or on a phone or tablet.Drawing and coloring — again, on paper or on a phone or tablet — helps people learn to control the muscles in their hands and fingers that they will need for writing.Tell others what your favorite books are.Give someone — or a library! — a book as a present.Have an adult help you get a pen pal. Your pen pal might be someone in a different state or even a different country. Writing and receiving letters is fun.Take part in a read-a-thon in which a class or a family or some friends try to read a certain number of pages (or books!) in a certain amount of time. It could even become a contest to see who could read the most.Join a book club. Everyone reads the same book, then gets together and discusses it. Who was your favorite character? What surprised you? Which place in the book would you like to live? And so on.Of all the holidays in the year, International Literacy Day should be celebrated by everyone, those who read and write and those who need to learn.
Fun Facts• Country singer Dolly Parton started a charity called Imagination Library back in 1995. It gives free books to preschoolers. It has given more than 186 million books to young children.• International Literacy Day is often called by its three initials: ILD (said one letter at a time).• The theme for this year’s ILD is “Transforming Literacy Learning Spaces.”
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