I am hopeful that we can expand the ways we define literacy in K-12 schools. In reality, literacy has never only been about text but that is a hard one these days with reading and writing being the two that are tested. We have to get to a point that the digital and networked and visual and other literacies are not fluff or “add-ons”. They need to be the meat of what we do. I think, in reality, our kids are probably network literate and digitally literate long before they are print literate. I think many preschoolers can use an ipod to listen to a story, communicate with friends on Webkinz, etc. long before they can make sense of print. I’m not sure what that means for us but I am so hopeful that this graphic will become one that is more whole in the near future.

As for the image, there is no scentific research behind it, and there was never meant to be. It was my own visual representation of Kathleen Yancey’s report from NCTE titled Writing in the 21st Century. I created the graph as my own visual representation of what she was explaining in the article. The original blog post where I created the pyramid is linked here and in the article above.

If it’s hard data numbers you’re looking for I don’t have them.

On a related note, consider looking into the work of Donald Leu at the University of Connecticut. He is a literacy professor who is working diligently to bridge print, digital, and networked literacies. (see http://www.newliteracies.uconn.edu/)

Understand that given your large audience/readership, you have a responsibility to provide the most accurate information you can. While I like the idea of a simple pyramid, literacy education is more complex and requires a more thoughtful approach than the one I think you’re posing. Nonetheless, I appreciate your earnest attempt at framing the larger issues at hand. For me network and digital literacy is not different than literacy writ large. Compartmentalizing these items only makes connecting them in a teacher’s practice that much more difficult.

Critical reading is critical reading no matter if you’re reading a web page, a cereal box, watching Sponge Bob, or reading Foucault. I believe separating out these literacies as unique skill sets misses the larger picture. Creating a Facebook page to spread a message is one form of literacy that needs to be scaffolded into a larger skill set of identifying appropriate places to use for marketing and communication purposes. Shouldn’t a discussion of Facebook’s business plan be included in this teachable moment? Again, reading critically requires us to first help students peek behind the curtain before adopting tools simply because they are free and easily available.