ABSTRACT
How much is the ability to read worth? To be illiterate in most contemporary societies is to be marginalized and disadvantaged. Anyone who arrives in a country where lack of knowledge of the language prevents their reading the most basic written signs, will appreciate the metaphorical imprisonments attributable to their ignorance of the language. Literacy is both a contributor to, and an amplifier of, human abilities. To argue that, in the era of information technology, learning to read is preparing children for the nineteenth rather than the twentyfirst century, is to misunderstand the nature of human thought and its development. Literacy liberates.
