In order for a person to be successful in life and to be an involved citizen, he needs, today, a more advanced level of literacy skills than in the past. The necessary level of literacy skills to face the challenges of adult life is constantly increasing, reflecting the increasing complexity of the world we live in and the increasingly alert pace of changes in society. It is known that it is not enough to prepare children and young people at school for the reading and writing necessary for school life. They need to be prepared to be able to continue learning using literacy skills throughout life. Literacy is a complex competence that underlies all other key competences. In Romania, the school still focuses on the formation of knowledge specific to certain disciplines. That is why the results of Romanian students in the PISA tests indicate a low ability to understand, interpret and relate to a text. Thus, the study aims to identify some causes that have contributed to this reality and what are the strategies to make students' literacy skills more efficient. Some working tools were taken from studies carried out on the Romanian population to analyze the results of students in international assessments, to which was added the SMALSI questionnaire validated for Romania, from which the items aimed at reading/comprehension strategies were selected. A number of 214 secondary school students from Bihor county, Romania from schools where the University of Oradea coordinates the pedagogical practice activity of students from the Faculty of Letters participated in the study. The obtained results revealed a poor development of literacy among students, slightly higher among girls than among boys. The study's conclusions support the findings of previous studies, but emphasize the need for teacher training to learn how to assess students' literacy levels, how to develop personalized intervention plans, and how to apply effective strategies for developing literacy skills.

Keywords: Literacy competence, strategies, school environment, teacher training, skills.