Page 5 - Reading Nest - The Supportive Literacy Environment Handbook

Terminology explained

Literacy is, in its broadest meaning, the skill of reading and writing.

Some authors distinguish reading as a skill to read letters, words and simpler texts, and

literacy which presupposes higher level skills to use and create a variety of texts in
different functions (see e.g White & McCloskey 2003). Three types of literacy are
described by the Dictionary of Education (Institute of the Estonian Language, 2014):

formal, functional and recreational, or an ability to read, an ability to understand the text,
and an ability to create purposeful texts. According to contemporary research literacy
emerges holistically – already at the preschool age formal literacy develops

simultaneously along with functional and recreational literacy. Therefore, it is of
importance to offer young children opportunities for accessing written texts in a wide
range of forms and functions.

The 21st century concept of literacy incorporates many aspects: reading decoding process,
motivated and reflective reading behaviour, active creative imagination and understanding,

but also an ability to possess technical devices, to cooperate when reading and writing,

control several information flows simultaneously, initiate and analyse multimedia texts,
indulge in enjoyable reading and assume ethical responsibility as a participant in a written
communication environment. Today's literate person should be able to understand and
create multi-modal texts on screens, that means, at the very least involving digital
competences at the basic level. Texts also include drawings, graphs, numeric data etc.,

hence the concept of literacy today includes some arithmetic and processing of visual

material (pictures, maps, videos).