trivia

Double-click on any word and see its definition from Cambridge Dictionaries Online.

History
The existence of secular and religious texts as well as references to great metaphysical debates including reading and writing contests in those texts from the Indian subcontinent (South Asia) points to a highly, perhaps selectively, literate culture there as far back as five to eight thousand years ago. Some major Hindu texts and other discourses contesting them are supposed to be eight thousand years old. Because of its emphasis on the individual reading of the Qur'an in the original Arabic alphabet many Islamic countries have known a comparatively high level of literacy during most of the past twelve centuries.
Source: Wikipedia

Person
Dr. Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) was a Christian Evangelical missionary and mystic known as "The Apostle to the Illiterates." In 1935, while working at a remote location in the Philippines, he developed the "Each One Teach One" literacy program, which has been used to teach about 60 million people to read in their own language.
Source: Wikipedia

Film
The Illiterate One (original title ‘El Analfabeto’) (1961): directed and written by Miguel M. Delgado and starring Inocencio Prieto y Calvo as Cantinflas. Plot outline: Cantinflas stars as a young illiterate man who receives a letter informing him that his rich uncle has passed away, leaving him with a great fortune. However, he'll need to learn to read and write before understanding the letter.
Source: IMDb

Numbers
In 1841 in England 33% of men and 44% of women signed marriage certificates with their mark as they were unable to write.
Source: Wikipedia

Thing
A basal reader is a textbook used to teach reading and associated skills to schoolchildren. Commonly called "reading books," they are usually published as anthologies that combine previously published short stories, excerpts of longer narratives, and original works. A standard basal series comes with individual identical books for students, a "teacher's edition," of the book, and a collection of workbooks, assessments, and activities. Dick and Jane were the main characters in popular basal readers written by Zerna Sharp used to teach children to read between the 1930s and 1960s. The main characters, Dick and Jane, were a little boy and girl. Supporting characters included Baby (or Sally), Mother, Father, Spot the dog, Puff the cat, Jack the clown, and Tim the teddy bear. They first appeared in the Elson-Grey Readers used in the 1930s. In the 1950s, 80% of first graders were using Dick and Jane in the classroom. The books relied on sight reading (or "whole word reading") and repetition, using phrases like, "Oh, see. Oh, see Jane. Funny, funny Jane," and rejected phonics. For this reason, they came to be used less and less as studies supported phonics as a more effective method of gaining literacy.
Source: Wikipedia

Song
The Book I Read by Talking Heads
See lyrics

Wordplay
literary illiterates and books on tape are listed as oxymorons
Source: Oxymoron List
The following are all puns:
To write with a broken pencil is pointless.
His penmanship is certainly nothing to write home about.
English teachers can keep a class Spell bound.
Source: http://punoftheday.com/

Quotes
The illiterate of the future will not be the person who cannot read. It will be the person who does not know how to learn. (Alvin Toffler)
There is that indescribable freshness and unconsciousness about an illiterate person that humbles and mocks the power of the noblest expressive genius. (Walt Whitman)
A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special. (Nelson Mandela)
TRUTHFUL, adj. Dumb and illiterate. (Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary)
Source: Creative Quotations

Record
First Chimp to Learn a Computer Language: Lana the chimpanzee was trained at the Yerkes Primate Research Centre in Atlanta, USA, in 1972 to write and read Yerkish, a language of words represented by abstract symbols that appear on a computer keyboard. After three years, she had a vocabulary of 120 words and could ask for a cup of coffee 23 ways.
Source: Guinness World Records

Proverbs
An illiterate king is a crowned ass. (Medieval English)
He who can read and write has four eyes. (Albanian)
If your books are not read, your descendants will be ignorant. (Chinese)
When you have read a book for the first time, you get to know a friend; read it for a second time and you meet an old friend. (Chinese)
Learn to handle a writing-brush and you'll never handle a begging-bowl. (Chinese)
Source: Creative Proverbs