literacy education essay

Chapter 1. What is Literacy? Multiple Perspectives on Literacy

Constance Beecher

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” – Frederick Douglass

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Keywords: literacy, digital literacy, critical literacy, community-based literacies

Definitions of literacy from multiple perspectives

Literacy is the cornerstone of education by any definition. Literacy refers to the ability of people to read and write (UNESCO, 2017). Reading and writing in turn are about encoding and decoding information between written symbols and sound (Resnick, 1983; Tyner, 1998). More specifically, literacy is the ability to understand the relationship between sounds and written words such that one may read, say, and understand them (UNESCO, 2004; Vlieghe, 2015). About 67 percent of children nationwide, and more than 80 percent of those from families with low incomes, are not proficient readers by the end of third grade ( The Nation Assessment for Educational Progress; NAEP 2022 ).  Children who are not reading on grade level by third grade are 4 times more likely to drop out of school than their peers who are reading on grade level. A large body of research clearly demonstrates that Americans with fewer years of education have poorer health and shorter lives. In fact, since the 1990s, life expectancy has fallen for people without a high school education. Completing more years of education creates better access to health insurance, medical care, and the resources for living a healthier life (Saha, 2006). Americans with less education face higher rates of illness, higher rates of disability, and shorter life expectancies. In the U.S., 25-year-olds without a high school diploma can expect to die 9 years sooner than college graduates. For example, by 2011, the prevalence of diabetes had reached 15% for adults without a high -school education, compared with 7% for college graduates (Zimmerman et al., 2018).

Thus, literacy is a goal of utmost importance to society. But what does it mean to be literate, or to be able to read? What counts as literacy?

Learning Objectives

• Describe two or more definitions of literacy and the differences between them.
• Define digital and critical literacy.
• Distinguish between digital literacy, critical literacy, and community-based literacies.
• Explain multiple perspectives on literacy.

Here are some definitions to consider:

“Literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in their community and wider society.” – United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

“The ability to understand, use, and respond appropriately to written texts.” – National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), citing the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC)

“An individual’s ability to read, write, and speak in English, compute, and solve problems, at levels of proficiency necessary to function on the job, in the family of the individual, and in society.” – Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), Section 203

“The ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in their community and wider society.” – Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), as cited by the American Library Association’s Committee on Literacy

“Using printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential.” – Kutner, Greenberg, Jin, Boyle, Hsu, & Dunleavy (2007). Literacy in Everyday Life: Results from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NCES 2007-480)

Which one of these above definitions resonates with you? Why?

New literacy practices as meaning-making practices

In the 21 st century, literacy increasingly includes understanding the roles of digital media and technology in literacy. In 1996, the New London Group coined the term “multiliteracies” or “new literacies” to describe a modern view of literacy that reflected multiple communication forms and contexts of cultural and linguistic diversity within a globalized society. They defined multiliteracies as a combination of multiple ways of communicating and making meaning, including such modes as visual, audio, spatial, behavioral, and gestural (New London Group, 1996). Most of the text’s students come across today are digital (like this textbook!). Instead of books and magazines, students are reading blogs and text messages.

For a short video on the importance of digital literacy, watch The New Media Literacies .

The National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE, 2019) makes it clear that our definitions of literacy must continue to evolve and grow ( NCTE definition of digital literacy ).

“Literacy has always been a collection of communicative and sociocultural practices shared among communities. As society and technology change, so does literacy. The world demands that a literate person possess and intentionally apply a wide range of skills, competencies, and dispositions. These literacies are interconnected, dynamic, and malleable. As in the past, they are inextricably linked with histories, narratives, life possibilities, and social trajectories of all individuals and groups. Active, successful participants in a global society must be able to:

• participate effectively and critically in a networked world.
• explore and engage critically and thoughtfully across a wide variety of inclusive texts and tools/modalities.
• consume, curate, and create actively across contexts.
• advocate for equitable access to and accessibility of texts, tools, and information.
• build and sustain intentional global and cross-cultural connections and relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and strengthen independent thought.
• promote culturally sustaining communication and recognize the bias and privilege present in the interactions.
• examine the rights, responsibilities, and ethical implications of the use and creation of information.
• determine how and to what extent texts and tools amplify one’s own and others’ narratives as well as counterproductive narratives.
• recognize and honor the multilingual literacy identities and culture experiences individuals bring to learning environments, and provide opportunities to promote, amplify, and encourage these variations of language (e.g., dialect, jargon, and register).”

In other words, literacy is not just the ability to read and write. It is also being able to effectively use digital technology to find and analyze information. Students who are digitally literate know how to do research, find reliable sources, and make judgments about what they read online and in print. Next, we will learn more about digital literacy.

• Malleable : can be changed.
• Culturally sustaining : the pedagogical preservation of the cultural and linguistic competence of young people pertaining to their communities of origin while simultaneously affording dominant-culture competence.
• Bias : a tendency to believe that some people, ideas, etc., are better than others, usually resulting in unfair treatment.
• Privilege : a right or benefit that is given to some people and not to others.
• Unproductive narrative : negative commonly held beliefs such as “all students from low-income backgrounds will struggle in school.” (Narratives are phrases or ideas that are repeated over and over and become “shared narratives.” You can spot them in common expressions and stories that almost everyone knows and holds as ingrained values or beliefs.)

Literacy in the digital age

The Iowa Core recognizes that today, literacy includes technology. The goal for students who graduate from the public education system in Iowa is:

“Each Iowa student will be empowered with the technological knowledge and skills to learn effectively and live productively. This vision, developed by the Iowa Core 21st Century Skills Committee, reflects the fact that Iowans in the 21st century live in a global environment marked by a high use of technology, giving citizens and workers the ability to collaborate and make individual contributions as never before. Iowa’s students live in a media-suffused environment, marked by access to an abundance of information and rapidly changing technological tools useful for critical thinking and problem-solving processes. Therefore, technological literacy supports preparation of students as global citizens capable of self-directed learning in preparation for an ever-changing world” (Iowa Core Standards 21 st Century Skills, n.d.).

NOTE: The essential concepts and skills of technology literacy are taken from the International Society for Technology in Education’s National Educational Technology Standards for Students: Grades K-2 | Technology Literacy Standards

Literacy in any context is defined as the ability “ to access, manage, integrate, evaluate, and create information in order to function in a knowledge society” (ICT Literacy Panel, 2002). “ When we teach only for facts (specifics)… rather than for how to go beyond facts, we teach students how to get out of date ” (Sternberg, 2008). This statement is particularly significant when applied to technology literacy. The Iowa essential concepts for technology literacy reflect broad, universal processes and skills.

Unlike the previous generations, learning in the digital age is marked using rapidly evolving technology, a deluge of information, and a highly networked global community (Dede, 2010). In such a dynamic environment, learners need skills beyond the basic cognitive ability to consume and process language. To understand the characteristics of the digital age, and what this means for how people learn in this new and changing landscape, one may turn to the evolving discussion of literacy or, as one might say now, of digital literacy. The history of literacy contextualizes digital literacy and illustrates changes in literacy over time. By looking at literacy as an evolving historical phenomenon, we can glean the fundamental characteristics of the digital age. These characteristics in turn illuminate the skills needed to take advantage of digital environments. The following discussion is an overview of digital literacy, its essential components, and why it is important for learning in the digital age.

Literacy is often considered a skill or competency. Children and adults alike can spend years developing the appropriate skills for encoding and decoding information. Over the course of thousands of years, literacy has become much more common and widespread, with a global literacy rate ranging from 81% to 90% depending on age and gender (UNESCO, 2016). From a time when literacy was the domain of an elite few, it has grown to include huge swaths of the global population. There are several reasons for this, not the least of which are some of the advantages the written word can provide. Kaestle (1985) tells us that “literacy makes it possible to preserve information as a snapshot in time, allows for recording, tracking and remembering information, and sharing information more easily across distances among others” (p. 16). In short, literacy led “to the replacement of myth by history and the replacement of magic by skepticism and science.”

If literacy involves the skills of reading and writing, digital literacy requires the ability to extend those skills to effectively take advantage of the digital world (American Library Association [ALA], 2013). More general definitions express digital literacy as the ability to read and understand information from digital sources as well as to create information in various digital formats (Bawden, 2008; Gilster, 1997; Tyner, 1998; UNESCO, 2004). Developing digital skills allows digital learners to manage a vast array of rapidly changing information and is key to both learning and working in the evolving digital landscape (Dede, 2010; Koltay, 2011; Mohammadyari & Singh, 2015). As such, it is important for people to develop certain competencies specifically for handling digital content.

ALA Digital Literacy Framework

To fully understand the many digital literacies, we will look at the American Library Association (ALA) framework. The ALA framework is laid out in terms of basic functions with enough specificity to make it easy to understand and remember but broad enough to cover a wide range of skills. The ALA framework includes the following areas:

• understanding,
• evaluating,
• creating, and
• communicating (American Library Association, 2013).

Finding information in a digital environment represents a significant departure from the way human beings have searched for information for centuries. The learner must abandon older linear or sequential approaches to finding information such as reading a book, using a card catalog, index, or table of contents, and instead use more horizontal approaches like natural language searches, hypermedia text, keywords, search engines, online databases and so on (Dede, 2010; Eshet, 2002). The shift involves developing the ability to create meaningful search limits (SCONUL, 2016). Previously, finding the information would have meant simply looking up page numbers based on an index or sorting through a card catalog. Although finding information may depend to some degree on the search tool being used (library, internet search engine, online database, etc.) the search results also depend on how well a person is able to generate appropriate keywords and construct useful Boolean searches. Failure in these two areas could easily return too many results to be helpful, vague, or generic results, or potentially no useful results at all (Hangen, 2015).

Part of the challenge of finding information is the ability to manage the results. Because there is so much data, changing so quickly, in so many different formats, it can be challenging to organize and store them in such a way as to be useful. SCONUL (2016) talks about this as the ability to organize, store, manage, and cite digital resources, while the Educational Testing Service also specifically mentions the skills of accessing and managing information. Some ways to accomplish these tasks is using social bookmarking tools such as Diigo, clipping and organizing software such as Evernote and OneNote, and bibliographic software. Many sites, such as YouTube, allow individuals with an account to bookmark videos, as well as create channels or collections of videos for specific topics or uses. Other websites have similar features.

Understanding

Understanding in the context of digital literacy perhaps most closely resembles traditional literacy because it is the ability to read and interpret text (Jones-Kavalier & Flannigan, 2006). In the digital age, however, the ability to read and understand extends much further than text alone. For example, searches may return results with any combination of text, video, sound, and audio, as well as still and moving pictures. As the internet has evolved, a whole host of visual languages have also evolved, such as moving images, emoticons, icons, data visualizations, videos, and combinations of all the above. Lankshear & Knoble (2008) refer to these modes of communication as “post typographic textual practice.” Understanding the variety of modes of digital material may also be referred to as multimedia literacy (Jones-Kavalier & Flannigan, 2006), visual literacy (Tyner, 1998), or digital literacy (Buckingham, 2006).

Evaluating digital media requires competencies ranging from assessing the importance of a piece of information to determining its accuracy and source. Evaluating information is not new to the digital age, but the nature of digital information can make it more difficult to understand who the source of information is and whether it can be trusted (Jenkins, 2018). When there are abundant and rapidly changing data across heavily populated networks, anyone with access can generate information online. This results in the learner needing to make decisions about its authenticity, trustworthiness, relevance, and significance. Learning evaluative digital skills means learning to ask questions about who is writing the information, why they are writing it, and who the intended audience is (Buckingham, 2006). Developing critical thinking skills is part of the literacy of evaluating and assessing the suitability for use of a specific piece of information (SCONUL, 2016).

Creating in the digital world makes the production of knowledge and ideas in digital formats explicit. While writing is a critical component of traditional literacy, it is not the only creative tool in the digital toolbox. Other tools are available and include creative activities such as podcasting, making audio-visual presentations, building data visualizations, 3D printing, and writing blogs. Tools that haven’t been thought of before are constantly appearing. In short, a digitally literate individual will want to be able to use all formats in which digital information may be conveyed in the creation of a product. A key component of creating with digital tools is understanding what constitutes fair use and what is considered plagiarism. While this is not new to the digital age, it may be more challenging these days to find the line between copying and extending someone else’s work.

In part, the reason for the increased difficulty in discerning between plagiarism and new work is the “cut and paste culture” of the Internet, referred to as “reproduction literacy” (Eshet 2002, p.4), or appropriation in Jenkins’ New Media Literacies (Jenkins, 2018). The question is, what kind and how much change is required to avoid the accusation of plagiarism? This skill requires the ability to think critically, evaluate a work, and make appropriate decisions. There are tools and information to help understand and find those answers, such as the Creative Commons. Learning about such resources and how to use them is part of digital literacy.

Communicating

Communicating is the final category of digital skills in the ALA digital framework. The capacity to connect with individuals all over the world creates unique opportunities for learning and sharing information, for which developing digital communication skills is vital. Some of the skills required for communicating in the digital environment include digital citizenship, collaboration, and cultural awareness. This is not to say that one does not need to develop communication skills outside of the digital environment, but that the skills required for digital communication go beyond what is required in a non-digital environment. Most of us are adept at personal, face- to-face communication, but digital communication needs the ability to engage in asynchronous environments such as email, online forums, blogs, social media, and learning platforms where what is written may not be deleted and may be misinterpreted. Add that to an environment where people number in the millions and the opportunities for misunderstanding and cultural miscues are likely.

The communication category of digital literacies covers an extensive array of skills above and beyond what one might need for face-to-face interactions. It is comprised of competencies around ethical and moral behavior, responsible communication for engagement in social and civic activities (Adam Becker et al., 2017), an awareness of audience, and an ability to evaluate the potential impact of one’s online actions. It also includes skills for handling privacy and security in online environments. These activities fall into two main categories: digital citizenship and collaboration.

Digital citizenship refers to one’s ability to interact effectively in the digital world. Part of this skill is good manners, often referred to as “netiquette.” There is a level of context which is often missing in digital communication due to physical distance, lack of personal familiarity with the people online, and the sheer volume of the people who may encounter our words. People who know us well may understand exactly what we mean when we say something sarcastic or ironic, but people online do not know us, and vocal and facial cues are missing in most digital communication, making it more likely we will be misunderstood. Furthermore, we are more likely to misunderstand or be misunderstood if we are unaware of cultural differences. So, digital citizenship includes an awareness of who we are, what we intend to say, and how it might be perceived by other people we do not know (Buckingham, 2006). It is also a process of learning to communicate clearly in ways that help others understand what we mean.

Another key digital skill is collaboration, and it is essential for effective participation in digital projects via the Internet. The Internet allows people to engage with others they may never see in person and work towards common goals, be they social, civic, or business oriented. Creating a community and working together requires a degree of trust and familiarity that can be difficult to build when there is physical distance between the participants. Greater effort must be made to be inclusive , and to overcome perceived or actual distance and disconnectedness. So, while the potential of digital technology for connecting people is impressive, it is not automatic or effortless, and it requires new skills.

Literacy narratives are stories about reading or composing a message in any form or context. They often include poignant memories that involve a personal experience with literacy. Digital literacy narratives can sometimes be categorized as ones that focus on how the writer came to understand the importance of technology in their life or pedagogy. More often, they are simply narratives that use a medium beyond the print-based essay to tell the story:

Create your own literacy narrative that tells of a significant experience you had with digital literacy. Use a multi-modal tool that includes audio and images or video. Share it with your classmates and discuss the most important ideas you notice in each other’s narratives.

Critical literacy

Literacy scholars recognize that although literacy is a cognitive skill, it is also a set of practices that communities and people participate in. Next, we turn to another perspective on literacy – critical literacy. “Critical” here is not meant as having a negative point of view, but rather using an analytic lens that detects power, privilege, and representation to understand different ways of looking at texts. For example, when groups or individuals stage a protest, do the media refer to them as “protesters” or “rioters?” What is the reason for choosing the label they do, and what are the consequences? 

Critical literacy does not have a set definition or typical history of use, but the following key tenets have been described in the literature, which will vary in their application based on the individual social context (Vasquez, 2019). Table 1 presents some key aspects of critical literacy, but this area of literacy research is growing and evolving rapidly, so this is not an exhaustive list.

An important component of critical literacy is the adoption of culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogy. One definition comes from Dr. Django Paris (2012), who stated that Culturally Responsive-Sustaining (CR-S) education recognizes that cultural differences (including racial, ethnic, linguistic, gender, sexuality, and ability ones) should be treated as assets for teaching and learning. Culturally sustaining pedagogy requires teachers to support multilingualism and multiculturalism in their practice. That is, culturally sustaining pedagogy seeks to perpetuate and foster—to sustain—linguistic, literary, and cultural pluralism as part of the democratic project of schooling.

For more, see the Culturally Responsive and Sustaining F ramework . The framework helps educators to think about how to create student-centered learning environments that uphold racial, linguistic, and cultural identities. It prepares students for rigorous independent learning, develops their abilities to connect across lines of difference, elevates historically marginalized voices, and empowers them as agents of social change. CR-S education explores the relationships between historical and contemporary conditions of inequality and the ideas that shape access, participation, and outcomes for learners.

• What can you do to learn more about your students’ cultures?
• How can you build and sustain relationships with your students?
• How do the instructional materials you use affirm your students’ identities?

Community-based literacies

You may have noticed that communities are a big part of critical literacy – we understand that our environment and culture impact what we read and how we understand the world. Now think about the possible differences among three Iowa communities: a neighborhood in the middle of Des Moines, the rural community of New Hartford, and Coralville, a suburb of Iowa City:

You may not have thought about how living in a certain community might contribute to or take away from a child’s ability to learn to read. Dr. Susan Neuman (2001) did. She and her team investigated the differences between two neighborhoods regarding how much access to books and other reading materials children in those neighborhoods had. One middle-to-upper class neighborhood in Philadelphia had large bookstores, toy stores with educational materials, and well-resourced libraries. The other, a low-income neighborhood, had no bookstores or toy stores. There was a library, but it had fewer resources and served a larger number of patrons. In fact, the team found that even the signs on the businesses were harder to read, and there was less environmental printed word. Their findings showed that each child in the middle-class neighborhood had 13 books on average, while in the lower-class neighborhood there was one book per 300 children .

Dr. Neuman and her team (2019) recently revisited this question. This time, they looked at low-income neighborhoods – those where 60% or more of the people are living in poverty . They compared these to borderline neighborhoods – those with 20-40% in poverty – in three cities, Washington, D.C., Detroit, and Los Angeles. Again, they found significantly fewer books in the very low-income areas. The chart represents the preschool books available for sale in each neighborhood. Note that in the lower-income neighborhood of Washington D.C., there were no books for young children to be found at all!

Now watch this video from Campaign for Grade Level Reading. Access to books is one way that children can have new experiences, but it is not the only way!

What is the “summer slide,” and how does it contribute to the differences in children’s reading abilities?

The importance of being literate and how to get there

“Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope” – Kofi Annan, former United Nations Secretary-General.

Our economy is enhanced when citizens have higher literacy levels. Effective literacy skills open the doors to more educational and employment opportunities so that people can lift themselves out of poverty and chronic underemployment. In our increasingly complex and rapidly changing technological world, it is essential that individuals continuously expand their knowledge and learn new skills to keep up with the pace of change. The goal of our public school system in the United States is to “ensure that all students graduate from high school with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in college, career, and life, regardless of where they live.” This is the basis of the Common Core Standards, developed by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center). These groups felt that education was too inconsistent across the different states, and today’s students are preparing to enter a world in which colleges and businesses are demanding more than ever before. To ensure that all students are ready for success after high school, the Common Core State Standards established clear universal guidelines for what every student should know and be able to do in math and English language arts from kindergarten through 12th grade: “The Common Core State Standards do not tell teachers how to teach, but they do help teachers figure out the knowledge and skills their students should have” (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2012).

Explore the Core!

Go to iowacore.gov and click on Literacy Standards. Spend some time looking at the K-3 standards. Notice how consistent they are across the grade levels. Each has specific requirements within the categories:

• Reading Standards for Literature
• Reading Standards for Informational Text
• Reading Standards for Foundational Skills
• Writing Standards
• Speaking and Listening Standards
• Language Standards

Download the Iowa Core K-12 Literacy Manual . You will use it as a reference when you are creating lessons.

Next, explore the Subject Area pages and resources. What tools does the state provide to teachers to support their use of the Core?

Describe a resource you found on the website. How will you use this when you are a teacher?

Watch this video about the Iowa Literacy Core Standards:

• Literacy is typically defined as the ability to ingest, understand, and communicate information.
• Literacy has multiple definitions, each with a different point of focus.
• “New literacies,” or multiliteracies, are a combination of multiple ways of communicating and making meaning, including visual, audio, spatial, behavioral, and gestural communication.
• As online communication has become more prevalent, digital literacy has become more important for learners to engage with the wealth of information available online.
• Critical literacy develops learners’ critical thinking by asking them to use an analytic lens that detects power, privilege, and representation to understand different ways of looking at information.
• The Common Core State Standards were established to set clear, universal guidelines for what every student should know after completing high school.

Resources for teacher educators

• Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education Framework [PDF]
• Common Core State Standards
• Iowa Core Instructional Resources in Literacy

Gonzalez, N., Moll, L. C., & Amanti, C. (Eds.). (2006). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms . New York, NY: Routledge.

Lau, S. M. C. (2012). Reconceptualizing critical literacy teaching in ESL classrooms. The Reading Teacher, 65 , 325–329.

Literacy. (2018, March 19). Retrieved March 2, 2020, from  https://en.unesco.org/themes/literacy

Neuman, S. B., & Celano, D. (2001). Access to print in low‐income and middle‐income communities: An ecological study of four neighborhoods. Reading Research Quarterly, 36 (1), 8-26.

Neuman, S. B., & Moland, N. (2019). Book deserts: The consequences of income segregation on children’s access to print.  Urban education, 54 (1), 126-147.

New London Group (1996). A Pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures.  Harvard Educational Review, 66 (1), 60-92.

O’Brien, J. (2001). Children reading critically: A local history. In B. Comber & A. Simpson (Eds.), Negotiating critical literacies in classrooms (pp. 41–60). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Ordoñez-Jasis, R., & Ortiz, R. W. (2006). Reading their worlds: Working with diverse families to enhance children’s early literacy development. Y C Young Children, 61 (1), 42.

Saha S. (2006). Improving literacy as a means to reducing health disparities. J Gen Intern Med. 21 (8):893-895. doi:10.1111/j.1525-1497.2006.00546.x

UNESCO. (2017). Literacy rates continue to rise from one generation to the next global literacy trends today. Retrieved from http://on.unesco.org/literacy-map.

Vasquez, V.M., Janks, H. & Comber, B. (2019). Critical Literacy as a Way of Being and Doing. Language Arts, 96 (5), 300-311.

Vlieghe, J. (2015). Traditional and digital literacy. The literacy hypothesis, technologies of reading and writing, and the ‘grammatized’ body. Ethics and Education, 10 (2), 209-226.

Zimmerman, E. B., Woolf, S. H., Blackburn, S. M., Kimmel, A. D., Barnes, A. J., & Bono, R. S. (2018). The case for considering education and health. Urban Education, 53 (6), 744-773.U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences.

U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 2022 Reading Assessment.

Methods of Teaching Early Literacy Copyright © 2023 by Constance Beecher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

What you need to know about literacy

What is the global situation in relation to literacy.

Great progress has been made in literacy with most recent data (UNESCO Institute for Statistics) showing that more than 86 per cent of the world’s population know how to read and write compared to 68 per cent in 1979. Despite this, worldwide at least 763 million adults still cannot read and write, two thirds of them women, and 250 million children are failing to acquire basic literacy skills. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused the worst disruption to education in a century, 617 million children and teenagers had not reached minimum reading levels.   

How does UNESCO define literacy?

Acquiring literacy is not a one-off act. Beyond its conventional concept as a set of reading, writing and counting skills, literacy is now understood as a means of identification, understanding, interpretation, creation, and communication in an increasingly digital, text-mediated, information-rich and fast-changing world. Literacy is a continuum of learning and proficiency in reading, writing and using numbers throughout life and is part of a larger set of skills, which include digital skills, media literacy, education for sustainable development and global citizenship as well as job-specific skills. Literacy skills themselves are expanding and evolving as people engage more and more with information and learning through digital technology.  

What are the effects of literacy?

Literacy empowers and liberates people. Beyond its importance as part of the right to education, literacy improves lives by expanding capabilities which in turn reduces poverty, increases participation in the labour market and has positive effects on health and sustainable development. Women empowered by literacy have a positive ripple effect on all aspects of development. They have greater life choices for themselves and an immediate impact on the health and education of their families, and in particular, the education of girl children.  

How does UNESCO work to promote literacy?

UNESCO works through its global network, field offices and institutes and with its Member States and partners to advance literacy in the framework of lifelong learning, and address the literacy target 4.6 in SDG4 and the Education 2030 Framework for Action . Its Strategy for Youth and Adult Literacy (2020-2025) pays special attention to the member countries of the Global Alliance for Literacy which targets 20 countries with an adult literacy rate below 50 per cent and the E9 countries, of which 17 are in Africa. The focus is on promoting literacy in formal and non-formal settings with four priority areas: strengthening national strategies and policy development on literacy; addressing the needs of disadvantaged groups, particularly women and girls; using digital technologies to expand and improve learning outcomes; and monitoring progress and assessing literacy skills. UNESCO also promotes adult learning and education through its Institute for Lifelong Learning , including the implementation of the 2015 Recommendation on Adult Learning and Education and its monitoring through the Global Report on Adult Learning and Education. 

What is digital literacy and why is it important?

UNESCO defines digital literacy as the ability to access, manage, understand, integrate, communicate, evaluate and create information safely and appropriately through digital technologies for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship. It includes skills such as computer literacy, ICT literacy, information literacy and media literacy which aim to empower people, and in particular youth, to adopt a critical mindset when engaging with information and digital technologies, and to build their resilience in the face of disinformation, hate speech and violent extremism.

How is UNESCO helping advance girls' and women's literacy?

UNESCO’s Global Partnership for Women and Girls Education, launched in 2011, emphasizes quality education for girls and women at the secondary level and in the area of literacy; its Literacy Initiative for Empowerment (LIFE) project (2005–15) targeted women; and UNESCO’s international literacy prizes regularly highlight the life-changing power of meeting women’s and girls’ needs for literacy in specific contexts. Literacy acquisition often brings with it positive change in relation to harmful traditional practices, forms of marginalization and deprivation. Girls’ and women’s literacy seen as lifelong learning is integral to achieving the aims of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.  

How has youth and adult literacy been impacted in times of COVID-19?

Since the start of the pandemic, several surveys have been conducted but very little is still known about the effect on youth and adult literacy of massive disruptions to learning, growing inequalities and projected increases in school dropouts. To fill this gap UNESCO will conduct a global survey “Learning from the COVID-19 crisis to write the future: National policies and programmes for youth and adult literacy” collecting information from countries worldwide regarding the situation and policy and programme responses. Its results will help UNESCO, countries and other partners respond better to the recovery phase and advance progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 on education and its target 4.6 on youth and adult literacy. In addition, for International Literacy Day 2020, UNESCO prepared a background paper on the impact of the crisis on youth and adult literacy.

What is the purpose of the Literacy Prize and Literacy Day?

Every year since 1967, UNESCO celebrates International Literacy Day and rewards outstanding and innovative programmes that promote literacy through the International Literacy Prizes. Every year on 8 September UNESCO comes together for the annual celebration with Field Offices, institutes, NGOs, teachers, learners and partners to remind the world of the importance of literacy as a matter of dignity and human rights. The event emphasizes the power of literacy and creates awareness to advance the global agenda towards a more literate and sustainable society. 

The International Literacy Prizes reward excellence and innovation in the field of literacy and, so far, over 506 projects and programmes undertaken by governments, non-governmental organizations and individuals around the world have been recognized. Following an annual call for submissions, an International Jury of experts appointed by UNESCO's Director-General recommends potential prizewinning programmes. Candidates are submitted by Member States or by international non-governmental organizations in official partnership with UNESCO.

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Literacy Narrative Explained

Literacy Narrative Examples for College Students

A literacy narrative is quite simply that: it is a story of how you became literate and how it has affected your life. To create a literacy narrative, you just need to find your story and use  descriptive text  to bring it to life. Learn how to write a literacy narrative through exploring original and famous examples.

Breaking Down a Literacy Narrative

A literacy narrative is a personalized story of your relationship with language. Not only do literacy narratives discuss memories, but they also walk through a person’s discovery, trials and triumphs with reading, writing and speaking a language.

This doesn’t have to be English either. It could be your experiences  learning a second language  and the impact that it has had on you. The point is simply to tell the world about your struggles and growth with language and communication. Literacy narratives can have different  themes , topics, styles,  moods  and  tones  that you can work to make your own.

Key Features of a Literacy Narrative

To start, a literacy narrative is a personalized story.

• Hook:  Begin with a hook  to draw the reader in. This could be your first experience with books or how reading and writing define you.
• Focus: Rounding out your first paragraph, you’ll want to give a short thesis that tells the reader the whole point of your story.
• Meaning: Throughout the remainder of your narrative, you’ll use stories and  vivid descriptions  to explore the meaning of this journey to you. You might discuss how your poetry has grown or your love of reading has turned into writing.
• Challenges: Explore the challenges that you’ve faced in your journey and how you’ve overcome them, along with how your ideas and thoughts have transformed.

Example: Relationship with Words

Explore how to write a literacy  narrative essay  through an original example for college level students. The following example is written by  Jennifer Betts .

Words were like a puzzle that I couldn’t quite solve. Listening to the teachers read the jumbled-up letters on the page, I was fascinated by how they could easily bring the pictures to life. The first day that I truly became literate, it was like another world opening up. My fingers couldn’t find books fast enough. My relationship with words has been a powerful, fantastical and even sometimes disastrous journey.

I would like to say that I’ve always known the power of words, but that simply isn’t true. The power that a word can hold jumped at me like a thief in the night the first time I encountered my own personal bully. They took the words that I’d proudly written and made them less meaningful than trash. However, it was that bully that forced my reading and vocabulary to grow. They made me realize the power that a few sentences could hold in an instant. Like swords in battle, they can quickly cut and decimate your opponent. Mastering the tactics of battle, you turn from the opponent to the victor. The need to be the victor drove me to books. And books opened my eyes to a whole new way of thinking.

I have that bully to thank for leading me to the  children’s book  Harry Potter. The moment I slid open those silken pages, my eyes couldn’t devour them fast enough. The story pushed the limits of my vast imagination and truly allowed me to soar. The moment the journey was over, I missed it. And there hasn’t been another book since that has truly satisfied that high.

While I had dabbled in writing my own love stories a time or two, my need to find another fantasy that consumed me like the Harry Potter series pushed me into trying my own hand at writing. The moment my fingers hit the keys, the words just started pouring out of me at a rate that even I couldn’t control. Who knew that the shy, introverted child had so much to say?

While my relationship with written words are the things of dreams, my plunge into speaking often has disastrous consequences. Never have I been a good public speaker. In school, it was the day that I dreaded. Despite my preparation, I would trip and stumble to the podium only to repeat my performance in my carefully planned words. While they say practice makes perfect, in my case, practice has made mediocre. But to get the world to hear your words, sometimes you need to find the courage to speak them.

Even if the delivery isn’t perfect.

Though my journey with words started in frustration, it turned to fascination and wonder in a minute. Even with many years of reading under my belt, I’m still humbled by the power that a single word can hold if used the right or even the wrong way. Sharper than knives or softer than a silk, finding the right words is always an interesting journey.

Famous Examples of a Literacy Narrative

Literacy narratives can make an impact. Going beyond a short essay, a literacy narrative can even become an entire book that explores your literacy journey. To get your creative juices flowing, look at a few excerpts from famous examples of literacy narratives.

The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed? Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages our intellects and our hearts? Can the writer renew our hope for literary forms? Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so that we may feel again their majesty and power? What do we ever know that is higher than that power which, from time to time, seizes our lives, and reveals us startlingly to ourselves as creatures set down here bewildered? Why does death so catch us by surprise, and why love? We still and always want waking.

In “ The Writing Life ,” Annie Dilliard uses short essays to explore her journey with literacy and writing. Using her own unique style, Annie helps you to explore how and why she is a writer and what a rough and exciting journey it can be. You follow how writing can be torturous and transcendent all in the same moment.

Literacy Narrative by Kiki Petrosino

I wish to put my blackness into some kind of order. My blackness, my builtness, my blackness, a bill. I want you to know how I feel it: cold key under the tongue. Mean fishhook of homesickness that catches my heart when I walk under southern pines. And how I recognized the watery warp of the floor in my great-grandma’s house, when I dreamed it. This is what her complaining ghost said: Write about me.

Culture and writing and how culture affects writing are explored in “ Literacy Narrative ,” a personal essay by Kiki Petrosino. Kiki uses her experiences as a black woman and her history to show her relationship with words. She explores how her African American heritage drives her writing and how, through her journey with  descriptive poetry , she intermingles her poetry and race to create a compelling work.

Bird by Bird Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.

Anne Lamott takes you through a hilarious and witty ride to finding her story in “ Bird by Bird .” Through showing you her journey into becoming a writer and finding literacy, she tries to help others find their own story in this  personal narrative . Starting with some words of wisdom from her father, this literacy narrative takes you through her entire journey with writer’s block and pushing your limits. This is a great example of the impact and depth that a literacy narrative can take.

Finding Your Words

Everyone has a literacy story. It can even be how you don’t like to read. In college, you often have to explore your personal literacy story through an essay. Using these tactics and examples, you can dive into the fun world of  personal expression  and exploration. If literacy narratives aren’t your jam, you might give poetry a try. There are several  poetry genres  perfect for personal exploration and introspection, too.

https://examples.yourdictionary.com/literacy-narrative-examples-for-college-students.html

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Article contents

Critical literacy.

• Vivian Maria Vasquez Vivian Maria Vasquez American University
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.20
• Published online: 29 March 2017

Changing student demographics, globalization, and flows of people resulting in classrooms where students have variable linguistic repertoire, in combination with new technologies, has resulted in new definitions of what it means to be literate and how to teach literacy. Today, more than ever, we need frameworks for literacy teaching and learning that can withstand such shifting conditions across time, space, place, and circumstance, and thrive in challenging conditions. Critical literacy is a theoretical and practical framework that can readily take on such challenges creating spaces for literacy work that can contribute to creating a more critically informed and just world. It begins with the roots of critical literacy and the Frankfurt School from the 1920s along with the work of Paulo Freire in the late 1940s (McLaren, 1999; Morrell, 2008) and ends with new directions in the field of critical literacy including finding new ways to engage with multimodalities and new technologies, engaging with spatiality- and place-based pedagogies, and working across the curriculum in the content areas in multilingual settings. Theoretical orientations and critical literacy practices are used around the globe along with models that have been adopted in various state jurisdictions such as Ontario, in Canada, and Queensland, in Australia.

• critical literacy
• critical pedagogy
• social justice
• multiliteracies
• text analysis
• discourse analysis
• everyday politics
• language ideologies

Changing student demographics, globalization, and flows of people resulting in classrooms where students have variable linguistic repertoire, in combination with new technologies, has resulted in new definitions of what it means to be literate and how to teach literacy. Today, more than ever, we need frameworks for literacy teaching and learning that can withstand such shifting conditions across time, space, place, and circumstance, and thrive in challenging conditions. Critical literacy is a theoretical and practical framework that can readily take on such challenges creating spaces for literacy work that can contribute to creating a more critically informed and just world.

Historical Orientation

Luke ( 2014 ) describes critical literacy as “the object of a half-century of theoretical debate and practical innovation in the field of education” (p. 21). Discussion about the roots of critical literacy often begin with principles associated with the Frankfurt School from the 1920s and their focus on Critical Theory. The Frankfurt School was created by intellectuals who carved out a space for developing theories of Marxism within the academy and independently of political parties. While focusing on political and economic philosophy, they emphasized the importance of class struggle in society. More prominently associated with the roots of critical literacy is Paulo Freire, beginning with his work in the late 1940s (McLaren, 1999 ; Morrell, 2008 ), which focused on critical consciousness and critical pedagogy. Freire’s work was centered on key concepts, which included the notion that literacy education should highlight the critical consciousness of learners. In his work in the 1970s Freire wrote that if we consider learning to read and write as acts of knowing, then readers and writers must assume the role of creative subjects who reflect critically on the process of reading and writing itself along with reflecting on the significance of language ( 1972 ). Together with Macedo in the 1980s, Freire popularized the concept that reading is not just about decoding words. In their work, Freire and Macedo ( 1987 ) noted that reading the word is simultaneously about reading the world. This means that our reading of any text is mediated through our day-to-day experience and the places, spaces, and languages that we encounter, use, and occupy. This critical reading can lead to disrupting and “unpacking myths and distortions and building new ways of knowing and acting upon the world” (Luke, 2014 , p. 22). As such this conceptualization of critical literacy disrupts the notion of false consciousness described earlier by Hegel and Marx (Luke, 2014 ).

The Frankfurt School scholars and Freire focused their work on adult education. For instance in the 1960s Freire organized a campaign for hundreds of sugar cane workers in Brazil to participate in a literacy program that centered on critical pedagogy. His work became known as liberatory, whereby he worked to empower oppressed workers. Critiques of Freire have focused primarily on claims that the liberatory pedagogy he espoused was unidirectional because educators liberated students. The binary represented here was also seen as problematic. Nevertheless his grounding work pushed to the fore the importance and effects of critical pedagogy as a way of making visible and examining relations of power to change inequitable ways of being. Work done by the Frankfurt School and Freire were overtly political and inspired the political nature and democratic potential of education as central to critical approaches to pedagogy (Comber, 2016 ) as seen in work done by researchers and educators such as Campano, Ghiso and Sánchez ( 2013 ), Janks ( 2010 ), and Vasquez ( 2004 ).

Luke ( 2014 ) noted antecedents to these approaches including early-twentieth-century exemplars of African-American community education in the United States that were established in many cities (Shannon, 1998 ), Brecht’s experiments with political drama in Europe (Weber & Heinen, 2010 ), and work by Hoggart ( 1957 ) and Williams ( 1977 ) on post-war cultural British studies amongst others.

Theoretical Orientations

Various theoretical paradigms and traditions of scholarship have influenced definitions of critical literacy and its circulation, as well as its practice. These include feminist poststructuralist theories (Davies, 1993 ; Gilbert, 1992 ) post colonialist traditions (Meacham, 2003 ), critical race theory (Ladson-Billings, 1999 , 2003 ), critical linguistics and critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1995 ; Janks, 2010 ), cultural studies (Pahl & Rowsell, 2011 ), critical media literacy (Share, 2009 , 2010 ), queer theory (Vicars, 2013 ), place conscious pedagogy (Comber, 2016 ), and critical sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology (Makoni & Pennycook, 2007 ; Blommaert, 2013 ; McKinney, 2016 ). Theoretical toolkits, or combinations of such theories have resulted in different orientations to critical literacy. As such it is viewed as a concept, a framework, or perspective for teaching and learning, a way of being in the classroom, and a stance or attitude toward literacy work in schools. These different theoretical orientations help shape different views. Regardless, “the project remains understanding the relationship between texts, meaning-making and power to undertake transformative social action that contributes to the achievement of a more equitable social order” (Janks & Vasquez, 2011 , p. 1). As such, regardless of the view one takes, a common understanding is that critical literacy focuses on unequal power relations—and issues of social justice and equity—in support of diverse learners. Diversity of learners includes taking the languages they bring with them to school seriously and understanding the ways in which multilingual children are treated unjustly when their linguistic repertoires are excluded from classrooms.

There are also those who argue that critical literacies are not just orientations to teaching literacy but a way of being, living, learning, and teaching (Vasquez, 2005 , 2014a , 2015 ; Zacher Pandya & Avila, 2014 ). Vasquez ( 2001 , 2010 , 2014b ) describes critical literacy as a perspective and way of being that should be constructed organically, using the inquiry questions of learners, beginning on the first day of school with the youngest learners. From this perspective it follows that such a perspective or way of being cuts across the curriculum. Similarly Zacher Pandya and Avila ( 2014 ) and Vasquez, Tate, and Harste ( 2013 ) note the need for critical literacy to be defined by individuals, within their own contexts, once they have learned about, and experienced, its central ideas. Comber discusses this in terms of teachers’ dispositions, which include their discursive resources and repertoires of practice (Comber, 2006 ). As such critical literacy can be described as “an evolving repertoire of practices of analysis and interrogation which move between the micro features of texts and the macro conditions of institutions, focusing on how relations of power work through these practices” (Comber, 2013 , p. 589). Janks ( 2010 ), Kamler ( 2001 ), and Luke ( 2013 ) have noted more recently the importance of not only analyzing text but also designing and producing it as well. In this regard, equally important is to understand the position(s) from which we analyze text and also the position(s) from which we design and produce texts.

Critical Literacy in Practice around the Globe

Critical literacy has taken root differently in different places around the world but most notably in South Africa (Granville, 1993 ; Janks, 1993a , 2010 ; Janks et al., 2013 ), Australia and New Zealand (Comber, 2001 , 2016 ; Luke, 2000 ; Morgan, 1997 ; O’Brien, 2001 ), and the United States and Canada (Larson & Marsh, 2015 ; Lewison, Leland, & Harste, 2014 ; Pahl & Rowsell, 2011 ; Vasquez, 2001 , 2010 , 2014b ).

For instance, in South Africa, Hilary Janks ( 1993a , 1993b , 2010 , 2014 ) used critical literacy as a tool in the struggle against apartheid. Her work focused primarily on young adults and adolescents “to increase students’ awareness of the way language was used to oppress the black majority, to win elections, to deny education, to construct others, to position readers, to hide the truth, and to legitimate oppression” ( 2010 , p. 12). To this end, she produced Critical Language Awareness (CLA) materials for use with older children in South African schools (Janks et al., 2013 ). In Australia, critical materials were created, in the form of workbooks, to deconstruct literary texts (Mellor, Patterson, & O’Neill, 1987 , 1991 ). Also in Australia, work deriving from postcolonial theory, was produced by Freemantle Press (Martino, 1997 ; Kenworthy & Kenworthy, 1997 ). Some of these materials informed work done in middle school and high school settings by educators and researchers such as Morgan ( 1992 , 1994 ), Gilbert ( 1989 ), and Davies ( 1993 ).

Critical literacy work with younger children began to take place in the 1990s in Australia, where Barbara Comber’s work has been very influential. In particular, her work with Jenny O’Brien on creating spaces for critical literacy in an elementary school classroom, using newspaper and magazine ads, has been highly cited in the literature (O’Brien, 2001 ). In the United States and Canada, Vivian Vasquez’s work with children between ages three to five opened the field for exploration in settings involving very young children by using their inquiries about the world around them to question issues of social justice and equity, using the everyday as text (i.e., food packaging, media ads, popular culture), as well as children’s literature. Although there are growing accounts of critical literacy work in early years classrooms (Sanchez, 2011 ; Vander Zanden, 2016 ; Vander Zanden & Wohlwend, 2011 ), more examples of practice are needed as demonstrations of possibility in school settings with young children.

Earlier critical literacy work in early childhood and elementary settings focused on critically reading and deconstructing texts as a way to help students question versions of reality in the world around them. For example, in Australia, O’Brien ( 2001 ) explored ways in which Mother’s Day ads worked to position readers of such texts in particular ways. She described this work as “helping her children probe representations of women, and setting them purposeful reading, writing, and talking tasks” (p. 52). At around the same time, researchers such as Ivanič ( 1998 ) and Kamler ( 2001 ) began highlighting critical writing in their work with older children. Janks ( 2010 ) refers to this as an important move that enabled us to think where we might go after critically reading a text. She notes, “because texts are constructed word by word, image by image, they can be deconstructed—unpicked, unmade, the positions produced for the reader laid bare” (Janks, 2010 , p. 18). A space is thus created for us to think about “how texts may be rewritten and how multimodal texts can be redesigned” (Janks, 2010 , p. 19). Such perspectives further informed the work of educators and researchers of critical literacy. Comber and Nixon ( 2014 ), for instance, attended “to the importance of children’s agency through text production and related social action” (p. 81). Examples of this include work done by Vasquez ( 2001 , 2004 , 2010 , 2014b ) in building critical curriculum using her preschool students’ inquiry questions about inequities within their school as a way to disrupt and dismantle such inequity and create new more equitable practices and places in which to engage in such practices. Reading the world as a text that could be deconstructed and reconstructed created a space for Vasquez and her students to disrupt and rewrite problematic school practices. As noted by Janks ( 2010 ), “if repositioning text is tied to an ethic of social justice then redesign can contribute to the kind of identity and social transformation that Freire’s work advocates” (p. 18).

The notion of design and redesign was introduced to the field through the New London Group ( 1996 ) in their paper on multiliteracies. Kress and his colleagues (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006 ; Mavers, 2011 ) extend this work stating the importance of design as “the shaping of available resources into a framework which can act as a blueprint for the production of the object, entity, or event” (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006 , p. 50). Janks ( 2003 ) refers to this as “a pedagogy of reconstruction,” while McKinney ( 2016 ) calls this transformative pedagogy. This pedagogy is integral to one of the most notable models to inform critical literacy practice, Janks’ Interdependent Model (Janks, 2010 ).

Critical literacy is also being used in state jurisdictions such as Ontario in Canada and Queensland in Australia, where governments have endorsed its use in school curricula. Its use is also growing in emerging and post colonial contexts (Norton, 2007 ; Lo et al., 2012 ). For instance, in her work in Karachi, Pakistan, Norton ( 2007 ) notes that students made frequent reference to the relationship between literacy, the distribution of resources, and international inequities. In Hong Kong, Lo et al. ( 2012 ) reported on “working with students to understand the social and political framing and consequences of texts” (p. 121). With regards to such work Luke ( 2004 ) has argued for the need to do justice to the lived experiences of physical and material deprivation in diverse communities throughout the globe. As such critical literacy should be adopted and adapted and should continue to emerge across a spectrum of political economies, nation states, and systems from autocratic/theocratic states to postcolonial states not only as an epistemic stance but also as a political and culturally transgressive position that works to create spaces for transformative social actions that can contribute to the achievement of a more equitable social order.

Influential Models

Different orientations to critical literacy have resulted in different models that impact critical pedagogy. Three influential models, in particular will be addressed here: Freebody and Luke’s Four Resources Model, Janks’ Interdependent Model, and Green’s 3D Model of Literacy.

Allan Luke and Peter Freebody have played a central role in making critical literacy accessible across continents. In particular their Four Resources Model (Luke & Freebody, 1999 ) has been widely adapted for use in classrooms from preschool to tertiary education settings. Their model focuses on different literacy practices that readers and writers should learn. These practices are learning to be code-breakers—recognizing, understanding, and using the fundamental features of written text such as the alphabet; learning to be text participants—using their own prior knowledge to interpret and make meaning from and bring meaning to text; understanding how to use different text forms; and becoming critical consumers of those forms—learning to critically analyze text and understand that texts are never neutral. Colin Lankshear and Michelle Knobel ( 2004 ) challenge Luke and Freebody’s model claiming it does not support literacy practices in a digitized world or for those who are “digitally at home”; those comfortable with and competent in using new technologies. In turn they offer examples of the kind of roles related to literacy practices in a digitized world assumed by authors of digital texts. These roles are as text designer, one who designs and produces multimedia or digital texts; text mediator or broker, one who summarizes or presents aspects of texts for others such as a blogger; text bricoleur, one who constructs or creates text using a range or collection of available things; and text jammer, one who re-presents text it in some way, such as by adding new words or phrases to an image as a way to subvert the original meaning (Lankshear & Knobel, 2004 ).

Larson and Marsh ( 2015 ), however, state that Lankshear and Knobel’s ( 2004 ) model focuses primarily on text production rather than text analysis. In comparison, Hilary Janks ( 2010 , 2014 ) in her model for critical literacy includes both text analysis and text design as integral elements. Janks’ model centers on a set of interdependent elements—namely access, domination/power, diversity, and design/re-design. She argues “different realizations of critical literacy operate with different conceptualizations of the relationship between language and power by foregrounding one or other of these elements” (Janks, 2010 , p. 23). She notes that these complementary and competing positions speak to the complexities of engaging with critical literacies and that they are crucially interdependent.

More recently, Comber reflected, “originally these approaches did not foreground the spatial dimensions of critical literacy”( 2016 , p. 11). Comber argues that insights from theories of space and place and literacy studies can create opportunities for designing and enacting culturally inclusive curriculum to support the needs of diverse learners. As such, in her work, one of the models she draws from is Green’s 3D Model of Literacy. This model is a multidimensional framework which argues that there are always three dimensions of literacy simultaneously at play: the operational, learning how the language works and ways that texts can be structured; the cultural, which involves the uses of literacy and in particular the ways that cultural learning is involved with content learning; and the critical, the ways in which we act and see in the world, along with how literacy can be used to shape lives in ways that better serve the interests of some over others. As such, Green’s model is a useful frame for unpacking links between literacy, place, and culture.

Debate, Controversy, and Critical Literacy

In spite of advances in the field with regards to critical literacy, there is still confusion about the difference between “critical” from the Enlightenment period, which focused on critical thinking and reasoning, and “critical” from Marx as an analysis of power. The debate and controversy around this continues. Definitions for critical literacy are often at the center of such debates, which are likely in response to attempts by some educators and researchers to pin down a specific definition for critical literacy. Theorists and educators including Comber ( 2016 ), Vasquez ( 2010 , 2014b ), and Luke ( 2014 ) maintain that as a framework for engaging in literacy work, it should look, feel, and sound different. As previously discussed, the models used as part of one’s critical literacy toolkit help contribute to the kinds of work one might accomplish from such a perspective. Critical literacy should also be used as a resource for accomplishing different sorts of life work depending on the context in which it is used as a perspective for teaching, learning, and participating with agency in different spaces and places. Vasquez ( 2010 , 2014b ) has referred to this framing as a way of being, where she has argued that critical literacy should not be an add-on but a frame through which to participate in the world in and outside of school. Such a frame does not necessarily involve taking a negative stance; rather, it means looking at an issue or topic in different ways, analyzing it, and being able to suggest possibilities for change and improvement. In this regard critical literacies can be pleasurable and transformational as well as pedagogical and transgressive.

Consequently, there is no such thing as a critical literacy text. Rather there are texts through which we may better be able to create spaces for critical literacies. The world as text, however, can be read from a critical literacy perspective, especially given that what constitutes a text has changed. For instance, a classroom can be read as a text, and water bottles can also be read as text (Janks, 2014 ). What this means is that issues and topics of interest that capture learners’ interests, based on their experiences, or artifacts with which they engage in the material world, as they participate in communities around them, can and should be used as text to build a curriculum that has significance in their lives.

Key Aspects of Critical Literacy

In spite of the fact that critical literacy does not have a set definition or a normative history, the following key aspects have been described in the literature. It should be noted that such key aspects or tenets would likely take different shape depending on one’s orientation to critical literacy.

Critical literacy should not be a topic to be covered or a unit to be studied. Instead it should be looked on as a lens, frame, or perspective for teaching throughout the day, across the curriculum, and perhaps beyond. What this means is that critical literacy involves having a critical perspective or way of being.

While working across the curriculum, in the content areas, diverse students’ cultural knowledge (drawn from inside the classroom and the children’s everyday worlds, homes, and communities), their funds of knowledge (Gonzales, Moll, & Amanti, 2006 ), and multimodal and multilingual practices (Lau, 2012 ) should be used to build curriculum. Because students learn best when what they are learning has importance in their lives, using the topics, issues, and questions that they raise should therefore be an important part of creating the classroom curriculum.

From a critical literacy perspective the world is seen as a socially constructed text that can be read. The earlier students are introduced to this idea, the sooner they are able to understand what it means to be researchers of language, image, spaces, and objects, exploring such issues as what counts as language, whose language counts, and who decides as well as explore ways texts can be revised, rewritten, or reconstructed to shift or reframe the message(s) conveyed. As such, texts are never neutral. What this means is that all texts are created from a particular perspective with the intention of conveying particular messages. As such these texts work to position readers in certain ways. We therefore need to question the perspective of others.

Texts are socially constructed and created or designed from particular perspectives. As such, they work to have us think about and believe certain things in specific ways. Just as texts are never neutral, the ways we read text are also never neutral. Each time we read, write, or create, we draw from our past experiences and understanding about how the world works. We therefore should also analyze our own readings of text and unpack the position(s) from which we engage in literacy work.

Critical literacy involves making sense of the sociopolitical systems through which we live our lives and questioning these systems. This means our work in critical literacy needs to focus on social issues, such as race, class, gender, or disability and the ways in which we use language to shape our understanding of these issues. The discourses we use to take up such issues work to shape how people are able to—or not able to—live their lives in more or less powerful ways as well as determine such ways of being as who is given more or less powerful roles in society.

Critical literacy practices can be transformative and contribute to change inequitable ways of being and problematic social practices. As such, students who engage in critical literacy from a young age are likely going to be better able to contribute to a more equitably and socially just world by being better able to make informed decisions regarding such issues as power and control, practice democratic citizenship, and develop an ability to think and act ethically.

Text design and production are essential to critical literacy work. These practices can provide opportunities for transformation. Text design and production refer to the creation or construction of multimodal texts and the decisions that are part of that process. This includes the notion that it is not sufficient to simply create texts for the sake of “practicing a skill.” If students are to create texts they ought to be able to let those texts do the work intended. For instance, if students are writing surveys or creating petitions, they should be done with real-life intent for the purpose of dealing with a real issue. If students write petitions, they should be able to send them to whomever they were intended.

Finally, critical literacy is about imagining thoughtful ways of thinking about reconstructing and redesigning texts, images, and practices to convey different and more socially just and equitable messages and ways of being that have real-life effects and real-world impact. For instance critically reading a bottle of water as a text to be read could result in examining the practice of drinking bottled water and changing that practice in support of creating a more sustainable world.

New Directions

New directions in the field of critical literacy include finding new ways to engage with multimodalities and new technologies (Comber, 2016 ; Janks & Vasquez, 2010 ; Nixon, 2003 ; Nixon & Comber, 2005 ; Larson & Marsh, 2015 ), engaging with spatiality, time, and space (Dixon, 2004 ), place-based pedagogies (Comber, 2016 ; Comber & Nixon, 2014 ), working across the curriculum in the content areas (Comber & Nixon, 2014 ; Janks, 2014 ; Vasquez, 2017 ), and working with multilingual learners (Lau, 2012 , 2016 ). These new directions for critical literacy, amongst others that may develop, reiterate and remind us of what educators who have been working in the field of critical literacy for some time have maintained (Comber, 2016 ; Janks, 2014 ; Luke, 2014 ; Vasquez, 2014b )—that there is no correct or universal model of critical literacy. Instead “how educators deploy the tools, attitudes, and philosophies is utterly contingent … upon students’ and teachers’ everyday relations of power, their lived problems and struggles” (Luke, 2014 , p. 29) and the ways in which teachers are able to navigate the (P)politics of the places and spaces in which their work unfolds. Janks insists that critical literacy is essential to the ongoing project of education across the curriculum (Janks, 2014 ). She notes,

in a perfect world in which social differences did not determine who gets access to resources and opportunity, we would still need critical literacy to help us read the texts that construct the politics of everyday life. In the actual world—where a 17-year-old boy sells one of his kidneys for an iPad; … where millions of people lack access to drinking water or sanitation—the list is endless—it is even more important that education enables young people to read both the word and the world critically. (Janks, 2010 , p. 349)

as one way to engage learners in powerful and pleasurable literacies that could contribute to creating a more critically informed and just world.

Further Reading

• Comber, B. (2013). Critical literacy in the early years: Emergence and sustenance in an age of accountability. In J. Larson & J. Marsh (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Early Childhood Literacy (pp. 587–601). London: SAGE.
• Comber, B. (2016). Literacy, place, and pedagogies of possibility . New York: Routledge.
• Dixon, K. (2010). Literacy, power, and the schooled body: Learning in time and space . New York: Routledge.
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• Janks, H. (2003). Seeding change in South Africa: New literacies, new subjectivities, new futures. In B. Doecke , D. Homer , & H. Nixon (Eds.), English Teachers at Work (pp. 183–205). Kent Town, Australia: Wakefield Press in Association with the Australian Association for the Teaching of English.
• Janks, H. (2014). Critical literacy’s ongoing importance for education. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy , 57 (5), 349–356. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
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Home — Essay Samples — Education — Literacy — The Importance and Role of Literacy in My Life

The Importance and Role of Literacy in My Life

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Literacy Education for a Changing World

Educators, and especially literacy educators, are uniquely positioned to be changemakers. Alongside tangible reading and writing skills, literacy educators can teach social awareness and critical reflection—powerful tools for personal and social change. These skills and mindsets empower children to question the world inside and outside their classrooms, to stretch their thinking and broaden their understandings, and to take action toward a more equitable society.

Although educators are the face of these conversations, they cannot lead positive change alone. To do this difficult work, they need support from scholars, administrators, and school-based specialists and professionals who are passionate, knowledgeable, and advocates for literacy. This is the focus of the International Literacy Association 2018 Conference, where research, policy, and practice will converge to deliver strategies for fostering positive change in literacy education.

As we gear up for ILA 2018 with its theme of Be a   Changemaker , we want to know, “How do you define a changemaker in literacy education?” We posed this question to our Twitter community, and their responses gave us a window into what literacy education for a changing world looks like.

“It means finding ways to help students become critical consumers of the waves of information available to them. Read, think, and intelligent responses through multiple means of expressions. Need to go way beyond reading and answering questions.” —Kimberly Kuhlman, reading specialist, Pennsylvania

The ILA 2018 Conference, with the theme Be a Changemaker , will take place July 20 – 23 in Austin, TX. Learn more and register here .

Alina O’Donnell is the communications strategist at ILA and the editor of Literacy Daily. 

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Rick Hess Straight Up

Education policy maven Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute think tank offers straight talk on matters of policy, politics, research, and reform. Read more from this blog.

Student Literacy Rates Are Concerning. How Can We Turn This Around?

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The ranking Republican on the U.S. Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, Bill Cassidy has represented Louisiana in the upper chamber since 2015. Cassidy recently released a much-discussed report , “Preventing a Lost Generation: Facing a Critical Moment for Students’ Literacy.” As schools struggle to address learning loss, and at a time when “the nation’s report card” finds that just 33 percent of 4th graders are proficient in reading, it’s heartening to see leaders step up. Given that, I reached out to the senator to discuss his report and what he has in mind. Here’s what he had to say.

Rick: Senator, you’ve had a long-standing interest in literacy and dyslexia in particular. Can you talk a bit about why this issue is so important to you?

Cassidy: Literacy—the basic ability to read—is at the heart of all other learning. If students do not learn to read, they cannot read to learn new material in other subjects. There are significant societal impacts for those who cannot read, including being less likely to graduate from high school and more likely to be incarcerated. Also, without a literate workforce, we as a nation cannot fill the 9 million jobs currently open or adequately staff the military, which hurts our competitiveness with other nations.

Within literacy, research shows dyslexia impacts millions of people across the country, specifically an estimated 1 in 5 Americans. Dyslexia is not about an individual’s intelligence but the need for specialized instruction and tools. As a parent of a child with dyslexia, I know how hard it can be to get your child the resources they need to meet their full potential. Unfortunately, many students are not screened for dyslexia until after they have already fallen behind, if at all. And, even after a parent finds out that their child has dyslexia, they may not be able to find or afford a school that provides the proper, tailored education.

We need to have a 21st-century approach to literacy and dyslexia based on science, including early screening and evidence-based instruction, so every child can achieve their God-given potential.

Rick: You recently issued a new report on literacy. What prompted it? And why now?

Cassidy: We are now at risk of having an entire generation of children—who were in their prime learning years during the pandemic—fail to become productive adults if reading proficiency does not improve. While many states continue to take meaningful steps to improve literacy instruction, more must be done. This report highlights this pressing issue and requests feedback from stakeholders across the nation. This feedback will be crucial to informing our efforts at the federal level so we can better support teachers, parents, students, and schools to ensure every child can read proficiently.

Rick: Your report cites a number of troubling statistics when it comes to reading. What are a few of the data points that you find most illuminating?

Cassidy: The 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress revealed that two-thirds of 4th and 8th graders are unable to read proficiently. The average reading score for 4th graders is the lowest it has been in over 20 years. For 8th and 12th graders, average scores are near a 30-year low. These numbers should concern us all; they are completely unacceptable.

Rick: As you know, there’s been growing interest in science-based reading instruction. Can you share a few of the key research findings from your report and the kinds of practices or policies that you find especially promising?

Cassidy: It’s important to be clear that when we say “science of reading,” we’re discussing an evidence-based body of research. It’s not one curriculum or program and it’s not just phonics-based instruction. This body of research has identified key components necessary for students to learn how to read and write and how teachers can best implement these components into reading instruction. Specifically, the science of reading has shown that students need explicit, systematic, and cumulative instruction in each of the five key pillars of literacy—phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

The states implementing the science of reading approach especially well are supporting the implementation by deploying literacy coaches, updating teacher-preparation programs, and providing explicit training for current teachers in the science of reading. These states are also supporting all educators—not just reading teachers—in learning evidence-based reading practices. It is crucial that improving student literacy be an all-hands-on-deck effort.

Rick: We’ve seen a number of states launch ambitious efforts to overhaul reading instruction, including your own state of Louisiana. Which states are doing this particularly well and what can we learn from them?

Cassidy: I’m proud of the work being done in Louisiana to improve student literacy. A key to that success has been the comprehensive nature of these efforts. Louisiana is one of three states that are implementing all 18 components of what science of reading experts outline as a comprehensive literacy policy. Unsurprisingly, Louisiana had the largest gains out of all 50 states in grade reading on the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress.

There is also the “ Mississippi Miracle ,” which describes that state’s enormous gains in literacy over the past decade. Mississippi achieved these results by focusing on the implementation of science-of-reading reforms. They didn’t pass a law and just hope for the best. The Mississippi department of education worked relentlessly to create clear guidelines and resources so that teachers had the necessary support and training to improve instruction. Mississippi also ensured parents were engaged and students had access to high-quality materials.

Rick: Your report offers a general call to action rather than specific prescriptions. Still, I’m curious if you have some general thoughts about what Congress should be contemplating in terms of information-gathering, oversight, or lawmaking?

Cassidy: Feedback from teachers and families, which can be sent to [email protected] , will be crucial in this process. I plan to share more on this front after reviewing responses to the report and workshopping ideas with stakeholders. Any policy that is considered will need to support teachers in using the science of reading and parents in understanding and identifying it. While curriculum decisions should remain the responsibility of states and districts, there are likely opportunities to strengthen how federal funds are used for literacy and to support states in tackling the more complex pieces of this puzzle.

Rick: Twenty-odd years ago, during the Bush administration, the Reading First program sought to promote research-based reading instruction. Do you look back at Reading First as a cautionary tale, a model worth reviving, or something else?

Cassidy: It’s a cautionary tale. Reading First had worthy goals aimed at aligning literacy instruction with evidence-based methods and materials. However, it was fraught with implementation issues and conflicts of interest. My hope is this report gives the education field an opportunity to reflect on all previous attempts to support literacy and offer constructive feedback to not repeat the mistakes of the past.

Rick: Last question: Given existing law, are there things the U.S. Department of Education could do to more effectively tackle the challenges you’ve noted? Are there particular changes to existing programs, funding streams, or rules you’d like to see the department explore?

Cassidy: This is the exact question I hope to explore with the education field as we receive responses to the report. I have already heard concerns that all is not well and that we can and must do better. This is the time to put all ideas on the table and chart a path forward collectively to improve literacy. If we do not seize this moment, the long-term implications will be dire.

The opinions expressed in Rick Hess Straight Up are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.

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Earn a master’s degree online in as little as one year at SUNY Oneonta!

Our flexible, online M.S.Ed. in Literacy Education can be completed full or part time. Choose from two options: Birth-Grade 6 or Grades 5-12. Graduates receive a master's in education and meet the educational requirements to receive professional teaching certification in New York State. If you already have a master’s in education and you're interested in getting certified in Literacy Education, you may be able to do so by taking only a few graduate courses.

You can begin the program in the fall, spring, or summer. The fall and spring entry terms are part time only to start. The summer entry term may be either part time or full time. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis, and close for the term when the program is full or at the discretion of the department.

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SUNY Oneonta offers Graduate and Teaching Assistantships to a number of full-time graduate students who are enrolled in degree programs. Assistantships are awarded by academic departments. Assistantships may involve tuition waivers and/or stipends.

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SUNY Oneonta has a strong track record of training teachers at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, and we were the first college in New York State to offer an online literacy education program.

Our innovative curriculum includes clinical experiences that will immerse you in inquiry pedagogy and prepare you to foster creativity, research skills, collaboration and other 21st century competencies in your future students. Many of our program graduates continue incorporating inquiry in their classrooms in creative ways and have become leaders of this type of teaching in their school districts.

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Literacy clinics are an important part of this program. In online literacy clinic courses, students tutor children in educational institutions and videotape some of the interactions. There are specific requirements pertaining to this tutoring and technologies. For more information about how online literacy clinic courses are conducted, please contact the department .

2024 Application

• Submit a copy of New York State initial teaching certification in a functionally relevant area. The Emergency COVID certificate can be submitted in lieu of initial certification.*
• Submit an official transcript of an earned Bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited college. *If initial certification was obtained prior to January 2014, proof of completion of DASA training must be submitted with application.
• Have achieved an undergraduate GPA of 3.0 overall and 3.0 in the major field during the last two years of undergraduate work.
• Submit evidence of passing scores on all NYS certification examinations.
• Have earned at least 3 credits of developmental psychology, child or adolescent development.
• Have earned at least 6 credits in reading or the teaching of reading.
• Submit an essay outlining your specific academic areas of interest and your career goals. What do you anticipate doing in the next ten-year period?

*Teaching certificates from other states are considered.

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Literacy and Education essay

Rose finds out that Harold initially showed promise in his readiness to read and that his abilities later became more downplayed than his more promising characteristics. His lower functioning abilities, such as his reading level in the second grade and his social behavior, attitude, and level of maturity are highlighted in the files. The subsequent diagnostic workup and teacher observations due to Harold’s issues reveal the further concern on only the negative characteristics of this student.

Harold’s current teacher focuses on Harold’s immaturity, speech problems, and attention span in the workup, but later makes comments to the fact that Harold is becoming more verbal (making this seems as a negative, as the term was “quite verbal”) and that he enjoyed storytelling. It seems that this would be very significant in that when Harold is exerting his speech through vocalizing his storied and such and this would help his speech problems.

Other teachers made comments on his behavior that ranged from the extreme (to him needing medical and remedial education assistance) to issues that should have little effect on his education (such as being pale and making frequent restroom requests). B. Respond to this quote from the text: `The diagnosis revealed more about a teacher’s need to reduce the complexity of troubling behaviors than it did about the nature of Harold’s difficulty with written language. `

It seems clear by reviewing Harold’s dilemma and Rose’s reaction to it that the teachers who commented negatively about Harold seemed to be cold and unfeeling in their approaches to Harold’s issues and sought very hard to place blame on sources that emanated from Harold himself and not of any deficiency that might be present in the classroom or with the teachers, themselves. The teacher’s comments did seem to possess language that reflected back upon them as being the ultimate authority figures.

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When they did not possess the understanding to properly comment on Harold’s learning and difficulties in social behaviors, they attempted to bring in other professionals to explain both Harold’s deficiencies and their own. C. How would you work with Harold in your 8th grade social studies classroom today? I would try to help Harold to utilize methods of learning that required more active participation. Harold seems to have a love for sports and fishing and knowing this, I would try to use these strengths to build on.

Since social studies require the mastery of maps and geography, I would ask Harold to draw maps of his route to the lake or to draw a football field with grids and numbers to represent the yard lines. He could learn that he can apply aspects of his life that are important to him in other ways, as well. Continually finding out Harold’s interests and using them to apply to social studies will not only help him academically, but socially too.

I would, also, try to help Harold by asking him to do group work with others in class to help his speech issues, so that he can learn to be comfortable with his manner of talking and with others in a small group setting. What strategies might you use to help him be a successful learner in your classroom? I would implement that strategies highlighted above to ensure that Harold does not become easily bored, restless, and discontented. I, too, would give praise and reward in the progress that he makes, as he has received little positive feedback in his school career.

I would, also, try to help Harold transition from junior high to high school by giving him advice on how much different the schools are, so he is prepared. I may try to obtain high school level material for his review, so that he does not become overwhelmed by his future, as he needs to stay positive throughout the remainder of his schooling. What would you do to build on his strengths while supporting his reading and reading and writing in the content area?

I would ask Harold to choose books that are relevant to both his life and the content area. With other methods listed above, Harold will prove that he can make connections with interests that he already possesses and can continue to expand on. His writing should center around summarizing his reading, initially until he can write more freely on other topics that he later expands upon.

References Rose, Mike. (1990). Lives on the Boundary. UK: Penguin. pp. 114-142.