The three models of reading between the sixteenth and twenty-first centuries: how social practices transform teaching methods

Abstract

This article aimed to connect two areas usually dissociated: the socio-historical phenomenon of literacy and school reading education. Using personal memories and academic production, it is presented key reflections at the heart of the debate in these areas. In the 1970s, the reforms to fight school failure caused controversy on reading methods. At the same time, historical research on the diffusion of writing put into question the role of schools in the eradication of illiteracy; these researches were supported by adult illiteracy in societies where school was compulsory for more than a century. These data, however, remained apart. To understand them, it was necessary to reject the idea of a stable model of the reading act and reconstruct the history of school reading.