What is Literacy?
Literacy is most commonly defined as the ability to read and write.
But it’s not as simple as it sounds. Reading and writing abilities vary across different cultures and contexts, and these too are constantly shifting.

Nowadays, ‘reading’ encompasses complex visual and digital media as well as printed material. An elderly person who can read the newspaper might struggle to get information from Google.

Similarly, different cultures will have different perceptions of literacy. The writing traditions of the English language make reading comprehension an essential part of literacy, but this might not be as important in cultures or groups that rarely read printed material.

Students need literacy in order to engage with the written word in everyday life.
Think of how often you use your own reading skills in everyday life. It’s not just articles that require literacy, but signs, labels, and the messages on your phone, too.

The same goes for writing. Nowadays, even phone calls have given way to instant messaging and text-based communication, making the ability to read all the more important.

But beyond the functional level, literacy plays a vital role in transforming students into socially engaged citizens. Being able to read and write means being able to keep up with current events, communicate effectively, and understand the issues that are shaping our world.

While literacy often is equated with the subject of English at school, it is in fact fundamental to all curriculum areas, with each subject having its own peculiar literacy demands. We know, for example, that for some children who struggle with maths, it is not their mathematical knowledge that is lacking but rather they do not have the necessary reading skills (including background knowledge) to understand what a maths problem is asking them to do. Literacy, therefore, is the job of every teacher in a school.

Literacy is essential for employment. At the most basic level, without it, it becomes challenging to search for or read a job advertisement, put together a CV, or read an employment contract. Within the discourse of the ‘future of work’, where an ever growing number of individuals and organisations are putting together lists of the must have skills and competencies for work in the twenty-first century, literacy, while often missing from the lists, underpins nearly all of the skills identified. In order to be able to think analytically and critically, to continually learn, to make effective decisions, or to be cognitively flexible, it is essential that one has the ability to engage with, understand and apply the ever increasing flow of information and knowledge that surrounds them.

Literacy further is at the heart of much civic engagement. Not only is much of the information released by the government and its associated agencies written, poor literacy also affects an individual’s ability to vote and therefore to engage in one of the foundations of democracy. Literacy also plays a fundamental role in everyday life; from being able to read labels on food at the supermarket, to reading road signs, to reading menus at the local café, or browsing the internet.

There also is a growing body of evidence about the importance of deep reading, of the kind that occurs in effective English classrooms as students engage with texts that tackle complex themes such as racism, otherness, and colonialism. Deep reading enables people to not only encounter but also to inhabit, through their immersive engagement with a written text, different lives, different perspectives and different worlds. Reading books and longer articles also is one of the best ways to learn how to think critically, understand complex issues and separate fact from fiction. This becomes all the more important given the current decline in reading for pleasure among adolescents (and other ages).