ABSTRACT
We were struck by the wide diversity of literacies in the home. Literacy at home is tied in with daily activities. Often it combines many sorts of reading and writing as well as drawing upon spoken language, numeracy, other media and much more. People deal with shopping lists, television schedules and junk mail. They write and receive personal letters and cards; some keep diaries, some write poems or words for songs; they deal with official letters, bills and forms; they have notice-boards, calendars, scrap books, recipe books, address books; they read local newspapers, catalogues and advertisements; people keep records of their lives, and read and write to make sense of this complex world; they belong to community organisations and pursue leisure interests bound by a web of newsletters, notices, minutes and messages. Newsletters from local associations, and from national ones, arrive as part of the unsolicited mail which comes through the door, or may be picked up by people from events and meetings.
