Malcolm X only attended school up to the 8th grade which stunted his ability to expand his skills in reading and writing. When X first went to prison, he came across another inmate who had an extensive amount of knowledge under his belt; up until this point, X did not have much desire to expand his intellectual capabilities, he was however inspired by this inmate to start reading.  When he did start reading, he found himself skipping over a vast majority of words because he was unfamiliar with their meaning; because of this, everything he was reading gave him more of a vague concept of what was written rather than the actual message. Eventually, he got his hands on a dictionary and began using it to his advantage. He would go through each page and copy every word and its definition, he says that it was the most writing he had ever done in his life. He continued to study the dictionary and eventually, he found himself knowing more and more vocabulary that in change allowed him to read and write more freely. In Malcolm X’s case, his newfound ability to read and write gave him a new purpose and joy in his life that he hadn’t been able to find before. He found a strong positive correlation between his literary skills and mental freedom; X said “I suppose it was inevitable that as my word-base broadened, I could for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what the book was saying.” This ability to read and comprehend without the need for assistance is a huge privilege that many who have this ability without needing to work at it take for granted. This can also be seen amongst immigrants who do not speak the local language where they live, it can be incredibly scary to not be able to read something and pick out necessary information; once this skill is acquired, it opens up the world to so many possibilities.