This volume examines the relationship between language and literacy from a systemic functional perspective. The book starts with a retrospective view on the development of language education practices, written by eminent linguistics Michael Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan, and then shows how this approach is implemented today. The second section presents a detailed analysis of how considerations of literacy education are approached in educational systems around the world. The contributors examine issues such as metadiscourse, genre, cultural politics, and how systemic functional grammar can help to raise literacy standards. The final section looks at literacy in more specific disciplines, including history, literature, science and student writing. The essays collected here present a comprehensive analysis of language and literacy from a systemic functional perspective, written by academics at the forefront of the field. It will be of interest to researchers in systemic functional linguistics, or language and education.