A state-of-the-art compendium of resource materials and current practice that answers two basic questions: "What is literacy?" and "How do individuals become literate?"

Not long ago, literacy simply meant knowing how to read and write. Today, the study of literacy is a complex field encompassing many different areas, from computer literacy to geographic literacy, and including several degrees of competence such as functional, pragmatic, and cultured. In addition there are six kinds of readers: the submissive, the active, the semiotic, the subjective, the psychoanalytic, and the interpretive community reader, and at least two distinct ways of reading: aesthetic reading and rational reading.

In this comprehensive, accessible volume, two literacy experts not only help readers understand the latest theories and the heated controversies in this exciting field, they also show readers how this vast new knowledge is being applied in successful literacy programs.