ILLITERATE...

Literacy is the ability to read and write, and illiteracy is the inability to read and write. Some researchers suggest that the study of literacy as a concept can be divided into two periods: the period before 1950, when literacy was understood solely as alphabetical literacy ; and the period after 1950, when literacy slowly began to be considered as a wider concept and process, including the social and cultural aspects of reading, writing, and functional literacy.