Scientific/chemical literacy is currently the goal of science education in many countries. Students' chemical literacy can be developed through an innovative learning strategy that explicitly direct student learning to aspects of chemical literacy. This research aimed to examine the effectiveness of SOIE (Strengthening, Orientation, Investigation, and Evaluation) innovative learning strategies on students' chemical literacy. The study used a quasi-experiment with pretest-posttest control group design. The research subjects consisted of two classes (N=68) first year students in a public university: the experimental (n = 34) and the control (n = 34) groups. The experimental group was taught using the SSI context based SOIE strategy, while the control group was taught using conventional methods. Students' chemical literacy was measured using a chemical literacy test (r = 0.761) and the data were analysed using ANCOVA. The results showed that the innovative strategy significantly improves students' chemical literacy, and it greatly affected all aspects of chemical literacy measured (e.g. content, epistemic, and procedural knowledge). The average score of each aspect in the experimental group was higher than that of students in the control group. The research implication lies in incorporating explicit literacy aspects and socio-scientific issues in chemistry learning.