Modern reading and writing

In the socio-historical context of the modern age, different theoretical and methodological concepts about reading and writing have been formulated, as well as various social, technological and academic uses. Nowadays, as Ferreiro (2005:13) states: “Reading and writing don’t have a unique definition, but they are verbs that refer to social structures, to activities defined from a social point of view.” The relationship of men and women with writing hasn’t always been the same: it was built throughout history. Reading didn’t and won’t have the same meaning in the 12th and the 21st century. We are witnessing the apparition of new ways of reading and new methods of writing, born from the new points of view, from hermeneutical perspectives, whose intentions are to explore texts and discourses.

In respect to these ideas, UNESCO and CEPAL state that “Cultural codes of modernity are usually defined as the skills required by the modern citizen for handling arithmetic, as well as reading and comprehension of written text; written communication; observation, description and critical analysis of the environment; receiving and interpreting messages of modern media; and participation in the design and implementation of group work.” (Cerro Robles, 1995)

The effort to practice the processes of reading and writing of texts and discourses helps expand and enhance the area of work, approaching these processes from a social, cognitive, discursive and interactive perspective, which requires understanding that discourses are, more than anything, social practices that cross with dialectical relations between particular discursive events, situations of communication in given contexts, powerful social actors and structures.