This chapter offers an integrated review and discussion of the major advances in theory and practice in the area of literacy, with particular focus on the work since 2014 onward. For the purposes of this review, it approaches Literacy as the ability to read and write. For reading, the chapter highlights theoretical advances that expand the view of…

Although basic literacy will continue to be necessary for survival, mass communications and information technology are bringing about an inevitable and lamentable decline in reading for pleasure and in the love of literature for its own sake. (TE)