Learning disabilities can interfere to a greater or lesser degree with access to printed matter. As a result these persons are unable to read in a typical manner. Literacy begins, usually, in the young child when he recognizes that written symbols carry information and he begins to accumulate a word recognition bank of favorite commercial products and fast food establishments. The next stage comes with the knowledge that certain letters and letter combinations can be interpreted phonetically and read as familiar words. This is an exciting time for children who joyfully report that they can read.
Literacy involves reading skills of a higher order.
Reading with comprehension, or literacy, is an extremely involved thinking process in which the reader uses a set of information processing skills and strategies in order to, for example, recognize inferences, appreciate mood, follow arguments, or judge conclusions. The beginning decoder is not ready for all that-but neither is the young listener. For both, achieving literacy is a developmental task. Visually and aurally literate persons use that same complex thinking processes to apply the same skills and strategies to the same end. While listening and reading appear to be clearly different activities, listening comprehension and reading comprehension are not so easily distinguished.