ABSTRACT
Although the author is using the word reading foremost in the context of alphabetically derived literacy, reading as an activity and skill has been around far longer than any script that represents sounds through symbols. Also, while the author emphasis on alphabetic literacy may appear to jettison cultures that use logographic systems of writing, often he use the term more as a shorthand—as way of differentiating this book’s focus, which is writing-based literacy, from other forms of literacy such as “media literacy” or “visual literacy.” The focus, consequently, is on epics and myths, folktales and fairy tales that bear signs of having been molded by a way of knowing that came before alphabetic literacy. Perhaps, maintaining that a culture is oral, or that certain populations might prefer oral ways of knowing, is interpreted as signifying illiteracy—with the very word “oral” therefore construed as something inherently demeaning, an insult.
