Reading comprehension and education

This past 23rd July, our brother Alfredo was invited by the Rural Educational Network "El Tuco", to present in a webinar for directors and teachers of initial, primary and secondary education, to talk about reading, ways of reading, the contents, subjects and difficulties in reading comprehension and education in general. Alfredo shared with us important lessons:

- He reiterated that "the measures we take are to get out of trouble", in the current context of the pandemic, both in educational and economic matters and, even more, in the educational field. Alfredo says well: “The mask protects the nose, but not the brain. It prevents us from contagion, but it does not help us to disinfect ourselves "

- Although the practice of reading, its exercise and perseverance can serve to improve the levels of comprehension, this does not guarantee that the person will become a “regular, passionate and critical reader”. So just having the habit of reading does not guarantee that what you read will serve you, transform you, provide you with skills for discernment and criticism. “Between an efferent reading, an informative reading, an aesthetic and entertaining reading, and a studious reading, what remains to forge and inspire is an ethical reading: one that leads us to love what we read as part of the position we adopt as we face the problems of the world.”

- It highlights the weight of the words, since they not only mean, but also evoke: "We hear or read something and the internal mechanisms of the human being are set by physical stimuli that unleash the feeling of appreciation or rejection."

- “The meaning of a text is not the sum of the words that compose it. The meaning of a text is constructed as the meanings of words, phrases and sentences are interrelated, from each person and context ”.

- "You have to love words, sow them, water them, hilling them: if not, there is no possible harvest."

One of the questions they asked Alfredo was whether teachers are prepared to develop reading comprehension in their students. He replied: “Are the officials of the Directorate of Education and the Ministry prepared to develop reading comprehension? Are we teachers critical and passionate readers? How many libraries are there in our area? The question is if we are able to recognize our limitations and if we are determined to find a solution ”.