ABSTRACT
Literacy theories have been generated through observations and cognitive experiments over the past hundred years. The fields of education, linguistics, psychology, and biology have contributed to this work. Theories have addressed reading and writing development, as well as how people engage in literacy including their contexts, relationships, identities, and cultures. Social constructivist theories including the zone of proximal development and scaffolding inform the contents of this book. Other theories important to literacy educators include metacognition, culturally relevant pedagogy, and funds of knowledge. The field of neuroscience has also developed theories of reading and writing and has more recently begun to address social interaction and emotional aspects of literacy. Biological theories such as ontogenetic adaptation and epigenetics are introduced in this chapter. This is followed by a discussion of the models of neurological processing including the dual-route and interactive models of reading. The chapter concludes with possible uses of these theories and frameworks in teaching.
