This article focuses on the question of access and design in literacy education. Drawing on an ethnographical study, two children's experiences of texts1 and socialisation in relation to literacy are mirrored through the Four Resources Model (Luke & Freebody, 1999). What does access and design mean in relation to this model and how is it manifested through the perspectives of Elin and Hassan? The empirical findings indicate that the text resources distributed in school are limited and that more possibilities for meaning and identity making through texts related to own experiences -- and differences -- are needed. It is concluded that the paradox of access to dominant forms of literacies as well as new alternatively literacies is not a question of either-or, but the complex core of a dialogical, dialectical and democratic literacy education where the possibilities of design in order to re-write and re-read the world are necessary and crucial.