Socio-interactional conception of reading: theoretical and practical approaches from two written texts

Abstract

The activities of reading and text interpretation that are usually performed in native-language classes follow a decoding perspective. The students are given questions, which are not defying, since the answers are easy to identify in the text. The only task for them is to perform the proposed activities, once they do not have the opportunity to experience contrasting conceptions of reading, thus being restricted to that only way of reading and interpreting texts. In this paper an attempt is made to offer a parameter for what would be a reading and text interpretation class based on the more encompassing notion of language, subject, text and reading. The objective is to offer alternatives of methodological treatment to the reader that would allow him/her to go beyond the reading practice as a decoding act and as a pretext for developing grammar activities, while attributing to the act of reading the configuration of opportunities for cultural and cognitive development. An example is offered that exhibits very favorable results, but which is not a “recipe”.