Critical literacy: the Four Resources model & (teaching) reading

Reading, from a critical literacy perspective, requires that teachers and learners make meaning beyond the text: from decoding, to comprehension, to critical language awareness. Where decoding is related to the technical skills of reading (linking sounds to letters and words), comprehension is related to cognition (being able to interpret the meanings available in texts). Critical language awareness (Janks, 1993; Fairclough, 2014) further requires understanding texts and language use as socio-culturally situated and as having both a social function and a social impact (Vasquez, Janks & Comber, 2019; Fairclough, 2001).
But, what might that mean for practice? Luke & Freebody’s (1999) Four Resources model outlines a framework for reading and the teaching of reading from a critical literacy perspective.