THE ROLE OF READING EDUCATION IN THE CONTEXT OF THE DIGITAL AGE: TEACHING PRACTICE AND READING

Abstract

The article discusses reading education in the digital age, understanding reading as a sociocultural practice that articulates cognitive, ethical, aesthetic, and political dimensions. Based on the distinction—without separation—between alphabetization and literacy, it argues that schools must overcome merely technical and assessment driven approaches in order to promote meaningful, critical, and pleasurable reading experiences. From a theoretical and argumentative perspective, the text revisits the centrality of reading in human development, problematizes teaching practices still anchored in transmissive models, and examines the impacts of electronic textuality on reading behaviors, information validation, and the circulation of discourses. It also considers the context of unequal access to technology, emphasizing that connectivity and devices do not, by themselves, ensure more qualified literacies. The article advocates for the teacher mediator as a literacy agent responsible for planning reading pathways that integrate print and digital media, multiliteracies and literary literacy, with emphasis on inference, curation, and authorship. It concludes that reading education is a condition for citizenship and cognitive justice today, requiring reading policies, school infrastructure, continuous teacher training, and assessment for learning, in order to re enchant reading and enable students to negotiate meanings and intervene in public life.