Literacy needs to be taught, not assumed to somehow evolve into the psyche of our growing up young. Teaching is more than chance and absorption of understanding by osmosis.
If there was less emphasis on naval gazing and more emphasis on the essence of literacy, including more teaching and less pontificating about comparative methodology, childen might be a lot better off.
Function is more important than process. Literacy is an endpoint (although fluid and evolving) and we should not get hung up and distracted by ‘means’ to that end.