In a Danish context, the acquisition of literacy by the "bilingual student" is embedded in an education policy discourse in which literacy is seen as a cognitive competence that can be quantified by measuring a number of specific skills in a defined language and in a defined written language. On the basis of empirical data from the research project "Signs of Language," in this article I will focus on how a social semiotic perspective on literacy can contribute to adding new dimensions to research in literacy acquisition by bilingual students. I will do this by focusing on how the interpretation and interaction processes of the child affect the child's meaning-making, and by focusing on the discursive macro-histories in which this meaning-making is embedded.