Improving people's literacy is a main priority for most of the world's nations. The UNESCO education for all (EFA) goals include the urgent priority of a 50% improvement in literacy levels globally, and to improve the quality of education especially in literacy and other life skills. According to UNESCO, one in five adults is still not literate and about two-thirds of illiterate adults are women. Literacy is essential to life-long learning, it is essential if people are to have full access to society, and it is essential to learning in formal education. The past 20 years has seen many significant developments in scholarship. The messages from this research need to be shared and put into practice. Dominic Wyse, a leading scholar in literacy, curriculum and pedagogy, has distilled the significant body of knowledge in this vital area of research, policy and practice into a four-volume collection. A feature that unifies this major work is the idea of contextualized teaching shown by research to be most effective. Volume One addresses the foundations of literacy, particularly the place of language and its links with literacy. Volume Two focuses on the teaching of reading. It includes reflection on the vital importance of texts and text-books, for example by drawing on children's literature research. It also focuses on reading at word-level including the teaching of the alphabetic code. Volume Three concentrates on effective teaching of writing, particularly essential features of the process of writing, including IT and multimedia. Volume Four interrogates international and global thinking in relation to educational policy for language, literacy, curriculum and pedagogy. It is through effective policy that research on the most effective teaching methods can powerfully influence practice.