Literacy is a cultural value of individuals and society, and as such it is an essential factor of quality and creative life in modern society. Literacy acquisition is thus an irreplaceable content of first, second and foreign language learning. In the paper, the author presents problems that occur in multilingual literacy acquisition based on contrastive error analysis of written materials produced in the writer’s second or foreign language. Data from the contrastive error analysis were used to draw guidelines for second/foreign language literacy instruction and a theoretical model of multilingual literacy development that has been verified empirically. The basic finding is that literacy acquisition in a second/foreign language as well as in the first language must be a systematic learning process assisted by adults aware of the stages and mechanisms that allow students to progress to quality higher levels.