The goal of universal literacy is perpetually challenged by the need to shift from outdated, fragmented instruction to evidenced-based approaches like the Science of Reading, which explicitly prioritize foundational skills like phonological awareness, phonics and fluency to close persistent socio-economic achievement gaps. Whiel success include globally increased basic literacy rates and the crucial recogntion of comprehensive literacy including the digital and media skills, as essentail for modernlife, significant battles remain against aliterary, the refusal to read, and functiona illiteracy, the inability to use skills for daily tasks. Educators maintain optimism despite the enormous task of providing intensive, equitable, and effective instruction to all learners, particularly those with learning differences, to cultivate champions of literacy.