Literacy principles as a tool for policy analysis: An examination of the values embedded in science of reading advocacy documents

Debates around the Science of Reading have often been couched in consideration of research scholarship. However, before a meaningful dialogue centered on empirical evidence can fruitfully take place, there must be some clarity around shared literacy values, and around how those values might be addressed through instruction. Drawing on internationally accepted definitions and a long tradition of literacy scholarship, we identify a literacy values framework, along with 12 interdependent principles describing what literacy education should nurture and develop: capacity for communication; knowledge and understanding of the world; repertoires of purpose; capacity for understanding text; capacity for text composition; imagination and creativity; empathy; capacity for criticality; multimodal, embodied, and technological capacities; capacity for democratic citizenship; empowering literate identities; and requisite skills. An analysis using these principles was applied to two Science of Reading advocacy documents: The Right to Read report from Canada and The Reading Guarantee from Australia, revealing significant gaps in the types of literacy instruction being addressed and emphasized for literacy teaching and learning.