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__Introduction__
The perception of literacy has changed many times starting with the ancient Greeks to today in the twenty-first century. Out literacy skills have evolved through the times from writing on [|stone tablets] to this electronic version of literacy you are reading now on Wiki. My idea of searching for information began with the university library and ended up online looking for other ideas to give the visuals needed for links. Our society has been driven into a literate social context where we have studied the various levels of literacy. The conventional literacy level is where Individuals could only read and write their own names, thereby ignoring functionality necessary for a literate society. The Functional literacy level grew in competency for literacy. There was a higher interest in knowledge of everyday items such as check writing, job applications, etc. Individuals defined the Cultural literacy level with power in the culture. We define critical literacy as gaining knowledge.

__History__
The history of reading and literacy began with the Ancient Greek. The development and adaptation of the [|consonantal Phoenician alphabet] to the Greek language had a major impact on the Greeks. (Garland, 1998) The percentage of Greeks that could read and write was unknown. Literacy as we know it today has raised exponentially since the Ancient Greek times. It was expected that only 30 percent of Greeks were literate at any given time. This was primarily through the variability of place to place and from group to group. The majority of the population was illiterate. The first public libraries were an invention of the [|Hellenistic Period]. The largest library was the [|Mouseion], or House of the Muses, in [|Alexandria], from which our word “museum: derives. (Garland, 1998) In 1456 it was estimated that there were only 30,000 or less books in all of Europe. What a change from today. Roman, T. Flavius Pantainos, gave the gift of the library in Athens. In it contains an inscription stating: “No book shall be taken out, since we have sworn. It shall be opened from the first hour to the sixth.” (Garland, 1998) So when did [|books] become a part of our lives?

__Ideology__
So ever since we have been able to read and gain information through literature we have had policies in place to ensure an education but not for all students. The Greeks believed only the men should be literate. As time passed women became literate. See the [|timeline for literacy]. Thomas Jefferson’s education philosophy was to educate the upper level of individuals that showed promise. Jefferson’s popular literacy was one of the cornerstones of a free society, (Tozer, et al, 2009) As our society has changed and have decided that an education for all is necessary we have seen a change in literacy for individuals. The phases of literacy; conventional literacy, functional literacy, cultural literacy, and critical literacy affect all individuals in some way or another. Whereas we learn to write our name as children, the literacy skills can grow within individuals from one phase to the next through education. For some the functional literacy skills are enough for them to become a part of the social world. While this seems a natural development not all individuals progress into the [|critical literacy]. The culture literacy as described by [|E. D. Hirsch], is a way of demonstrating the range of knowledge that literate Americans share. (Tozer, et. al., 2009)

__Socioculture__
The societal changes we are facing today are seen in our schools. As a parent I have seen various testing, assessment, and teaching practices change over the current decade. These changes are in reference to the No Child Left Behind law enacted by our past President [|George W. Bush] in 2001. What does this law have to do with literacy you might ask? Isn’t the law more about the accountability in our schools? Haven’t children been learning to read ever since we enacted public schools? It’s more about the way reading is taught. Teaching practices concerning reading strategies have changed over time and a new concept has been shown to be effective for students to have a better comprehension of [|what they are reading]. Please watch the YouTube for a view of a principle about the new program by [|Live Ink, a new way to read.]

Well, literacy has taken many forms from the Greeks writing on the clay tablets to wax tablets to papyrus and other media of literature we now enter the electronic field for our literature ideas. Will the printed material become non-existent? Maybe, maybe not, I do believe we will always have printed materials in one form or another. Many of the more recent 20th-century approaches focus on changes specific to individual societies and reject the idea of directional change, or social progress. We have moved into the [|digital native] age and yet we know that all students still need to have the reading skills developed as young children. What good will our society become if we can’t spell with grammar and context for meaning? Vocabulary and the [|teaching of developing] (Part 1) the [|needed vocabulary] (Part 2) for a society to be literate are still needed even with the digital age engulfing our world. We know the better teaching method includes the [|whole child]. So by including the whole child we define new alternatives to teaching literacy. [|Reading is Fundamental] and the notion of teaching children to read with grammar and context is what I want to help provide for all children entering the library.

__Resources:__
Absolute Astronomy. (2009). Alexandria. Retrieved March 10, 2009 From http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Library_of_Alexandria

Absolute Astronomy. (2009). History of the Book. Retrieved March 10, 2009 From http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/History_of_the_book

Absolute Astronomy. (2009). Mouseion. Retrieved March 10, 2009 From http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Musaeum

Digital Natives. (2009) Digital Native Project. Retrieved March 12, 2009 From http://www.digitalnative.org/wiki/Main_Page

ED.gov. (2004). Executive Summary, Archived Information on NCLB. Retrieved March 10, 2009 From http://www.ed.gov/nclb/overview/intro/execsumm.html

Embracing the Child. (2009). Literature for learning and shared reading investing in the whole child. Retrieved March 10, 2009 From http://www.embracingthechild.org/

Garland, R. (1998). Daily life of the Ancient Greeks. Connecticut: Greenwood Press.

Literacy Worldwide Foundation, Inc. (2003). Time line for literacy. Retrieved March 10, 2009 From http://literacytimeline.org/

Live Ink: a new way to read. (2006) A brief history of reading. Retrieved March 10, 2009 From http://www.liveink.com/whatis/history.htm

MSNBC.com. (2009). Technology & science. Retrieved March 10, 2009 From http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29445240/

Pikulski, J. J. Ph.D., and Shane Templeton, Ph.D. (2009) Teaching and Developing Vocabulary—Part One; Part Two. Retrieved March 1, 2009 From http://www.beyond-the-book.com/strategies/strategies_040208.html and http://www.beyond-the-book.com/strategies/strategies_041608.html respectively.

Reading is Fundamental. (2009). Retrieved March 10, 2009 From http://www.rif.org/

Rethinking Schools Online. (2002). The Influential E.D. Hirsch. Retrieved March 10, 2009 From http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/13_03/hirsch.shtml

Time line. (2003). Geri Hansen's Literacy Timeline. Retrieved March 10, 2009 From http://literacytimeline.org/

Tozer, S. E., guy Senese, Paul C. Violas. (2009). School and Society: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Boston: McGraw Hill.

Wikipedia. (2009), Critical literacy. Retrieved March 10, 2009 From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_literacy

Wikipedia. (2009). Greek alphabet. Retrieved March 10, 2009 From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_alphabet

Wikipedia. (2009). Hellenistic Greece. Retrieved March 10, 2009 From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenistic_Greece

Wikipedia. (2009). Sociocultural evolution(ism). Retrieved March 10, 2009 From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociocultural_evolution

LINKS: Digital Natives: http://www.digitalnative.org/wiki/Main_Page Reading is Fundamental: http://www.rif.org/ Live Ink: http://www.liveink.com/whatis/history.htm