In my recent reading around literacy and multiple literacies. Rather than viewing literacy as something that is mastered I feel that it is more in line with developing understandings from information acquired in various endeavours, then applying these understandings to perform specific tasks.
UNESCO describes literacy as:
Literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written (and visual) materials associated with varying contexts. (UNESCO 2004).
You could substitute ‘printed and written’ with any other way of acquiring information which can include other experiential sources.
- Letter sounds to words to reading.
- Movements to locomotion to playing sports.
- Quantities to money to finance.
- Curiosity to inquiry to scientific process.
I feel that in thinking of literacy in this way, it becomes a very broad concept of acquiring, understanding and applying information.
UNESCO Education Sector. (2004). The plurality of literacy and its implications for policies and programmes. UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000136246