Teaching Reading: A Historical Approach

Abstract

The historian endeavours to understand reading as it was taught in past times without comparing it with the present. He/she attempts to find out what written social practices were the point of reference for teachers, pupils and their parents and what were the means available to make this teaching possible. Besides, it is the opinions of the time and not contemporary standards that were the criteria according to which this teaching was said to be effective and why it was effective. Thus, between the 16th and 19th centuries, there were different teaching methods depending on whether they were aimed at restricted reading (religious texts of different forms of worships) or generalised reading (unknown religious or secular texts); depending on whether reading was taught from texts in Latin (catholic prayers) or in the vernacular (protestant prayers, secular texts); depending on whether teaching was carried out on an individual basis (tutors of the elite, teachers of rural schools) or in groups (simultaneous teaching requiring an clear cut curriculum, standardised books and trained teachers); depending on whether reading came before writing, or on the contrary the three R’s (reading, writing and reckoning — or arithmetic) could be taught simultaneously, with the emergence of slates and pen nibs at the expense of goose quills. At the end of the 19th century, contemporary debates about analytical or synthetic, phonic or visual methods appeared.

At a time when everyone goes to school, it is necessary to understand why some pupils do not achieve well, and how it is possible to remedy the situation, particularly in a society where writing skills are gradually becoming as important as reading skills in the definition of illiteracy.