In this chapter we look at literacy, an issue of central concern for educators working in multilingual classrooms, by asking the following key questions.

• What is literacy? We introduce the different models developed to explain our interactions with the written word.

• What are the issues for literacy in more than one language? We use the notion of continua of biliteracy to explore this highly complex phenomenon.

• How is biliteracy best developed? Using key concepts developed by Jim Cummins we look at the conditions which are most likely to achieve success in a range of different settings.

What is literacy?

Chapter 2 addressed the question: what is a language? This chapter begins with an equally basic but very important question: what is literacy? The many different answers to this question across the years suggest that this is by no means a simple matter. At one time, being literate meant the ability to sign your name. Later definitions include reading or writing a simple sentence; describing your daily activities; self-reports of being able to read and write; and passing a written test of reading comprehension at a level comparable to an average student at Grade 4.

Traditionally, there has been a strong emphasis on the technical skills required for reading and writing, such as letter formation, spelling patterns and word recognition. In what is sometimes called the autonomous model of literacy (Street, 1997), these technical skills are considered part of a 'neutral' cognitive process; there is no discussion of social or power dimensions.