Reading and writing ARE important. They are vitally important.
People communicate through reading and writing in their everyday lives.
Courses in Public Speaking abounded. The traditional view of literacy was expanded. And the first teacher who brought a newspaper into the classroom and taught students about parts of the newspaper, the difference between editorials and news, how to read a stock market page, and what the ads were doing was stretching the definition of literacy, too. This is not a new concept. However distressing the new terms may be, they represent a growth into additional areas of study.