Literacy: Whose Job Is It Anyway?

Literacy isn’t a responsibility to be delegated; it’s an opportunity for collaboration.

DR. CRISTINA COMPTON
Director of Program Development​
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As an instructional coach, one of the most pressing questions I grapple with is this: Who is responsible for teaching literacy? Naturally, the burden often falls on English Language Arts (ELA) teachers. After all, reading and writing are the foundation of their curriculum. But through my research and my work as a coach over the last 14 years, I’ve come to see that this responsibility cannot rest solely on their shoulders.

Recently, I’ve been working closely with content area teachers to explore a broader perspective on literacy. It starts with a simple but transformative question: What does literacy look like in your classroom? 

This question opens the door to deeper exploration:

• What kinds of reading and writing skills do your students need to succeed in your discipline?
• How are you teaching these skills — or are you teaching them at all?

The responses are insightful but often surface a disconnect. Many teachers identify critical skills like analysis, reasoning, or making evidence-based arguments, but they struggle to see these as literacy skills. I try to help them bridge that gap by highlighting that discipline-specific literacy is deeply embedded in their work — and it cannot be outsourced to the ELA classroom.

To truly understand this, we need to zoom in and examine what literacy looks like in different disciplines. Each subject has unique demands and requires students to develop specific reading, writing, and thinking skills. This is what is often called discipline-specific literacy — and it’s at the heart of building confident, capable learners across every content area. 

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Discipline-Specific Literacy: A Closer Look

Science Literacy
Science is a highly technical discipline. According to my work with science teachers, I’ve come to understand that scientists must:

• Observe and record data
• Hypothesize and predict outcomes
• Design and conduct experiments
• Perform data analysis
• Evaluate sources and support claims with evidence

​These processes translate into specific writing tasks such as lab reports, research papers, and explanatory texts. Yet, I’ve seen science teachers assign a lab report without fully unpacking its structure, format, or purpose for students. Without explicit guidance, students struggle to produce work that meets expectations.
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Mathematics Literacy
In math, literacy may not seem as obvious, but it is just as essential. I once walked into a math classroom where the teacher had displayed a list of professions requiring math skills to emphasize its importance to her students. Some were expected, like accountants or engineers, while others were surprising, such as electricians or pilots. Over time, I’ve come to understand that Mathematicians must: 

• Break down and solve complex problems
• Engage in quantitative and logical reasoning
• Identify patterns and create models

​Writing tasks in math include explaining solutions, interpreting graphs, and analyzing data. These tasks demand clarity and precision, skills that need to be taught just as rigorously as solving equations.
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Social Studies Literacy
Social studies teachers face unique challenges with literacy. My coaching work with history teachers has taught me that Historians must:

• Evaluate primary and secondary sources for bias
• Contextualize events within their social and political frameworks
• Compare and analyze perspectives

This translates to genres like historical essays, document-based questions (DBQs), position papers, and biographical sketches. But too often, students are given a primary source without the scaffolding needed to understand its technical terms, vocabulary, and historical significance.
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These gaps leave students floundering and perpetuate the idea that literacy isn’t integral to every discipline. But the issue extends beyond social studies — it’s a challenge across all subject areas.

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The Time Challenge

One of the biggest concerns I hear from teachers is time. “I don’t have time to teach them how to read; we have so much content to cover.” I empathize with this tension, I do. But the reality is this: without equipping students with literacy skills, they’ll continue to struggle to engage with the content meaningfully.
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Taking time to teach the attributes of a lab report, the structure of a DBQ, or the logic behind mathematical reasoning is not a detour from the curriculum — it’s the bridge that allows students to access it.

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Reimagining Literacy Instruction: A Shared Responsibility

As educators, we must shift the conversation: literacy is not the responsibility of one teacher or department. It’s a shared commitment across disciplines, where each content area brings its own unique set of skills, genres, and approaches to literacy.

When science teachers explicitly teach students how to write a lab report, when math teachers’ model how to analyze data, and when history teachers guide students in reading primary sources, the magic happens. Students become empowered not just to consume knowledge but to create it.

Transforming literacy practices begins with a commitment to discipline-specific approaches. School leaders can initiate this shift by organizing professional development sessions that emphasize the significance of integrating literacy skills into every subject. Teachers, in turn, can adopt practical strategies, such as explicitly teaching the structure of a lab report or modeling data analysis during lessons. These techniques can be introduced at the start of a unit and reinforced throughout, whether through whole-class instruction or small group sessions tailored to students' needs.
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At the end of the day, the question isn’t who is responsible for teaching literacy—it’s how we can all play a role in equipping students with the skills they need to succeed. Literacy isn’t a responsibility to be delegated; it’s an opportunity for collaboration. By working together, we can reimagine literacy instruction, build classrooms where content and literacy work hand in hand, and empower every student to thrive in school and beyond.