ABSTRACT
There is no doubt that literacy is a central factor in education. Much of the curriculum is articulated through reading and writing and literacy holds a critical importance in life generally. Literacy confers power, that is why it matters and why it is important to have a critical approach to the whole area of literacy in education. Being able to read and write successfully means having access to further and higher education. However, being literate means more than simply the ability to decode print, getting hold of the surface message. It means being able to bring experience and knowledge to bear on any text which is presented; being able to 'read the small print'; 'read between the lines'. It does not take much imagination to appreciate the deeply damaging effects of not having access to literacy; lack of confident literacy affects not only learning opportunities but the fundamental human rights of any individual or group. Wayne O'Neil describes the ability to see beneath the surface as 'proper literacy' and the practice of simply tracking words on the page as 'improper' literacy. He puts it like this:
Proper literacy should extend people's control over their lives and the environment and allow them to continue to deal rationally and in words with their lives and decisions. Improperly it reduces and destroys their control.
(O'Neil 1977)