A four-slide private lesson about How Reading and Writing Began
AI-generated narration. Press Play to listen.
People told stories and made images long before the first writing systems. A cave painting can communicate an idea, but a picture by itself is not necessarily writing.
In ancient Mesopotamia, people began marking clay to keep track of things such as food and supplies. Over time, those marks developed into a writing system called cuneiform.
People in different parts of the world developed other writing systems too. Some signs stood for words or ideas; others came to represent sounds.
Writing lets people leave a message for someone who is far away—or not yet born. Reading is the skill of finding meaning in those marks, and people have taught it in many ways.