READING EDUCATION: REPORT FROM ITALY

Cross‐cultural examinations of teaching and schooling can help one gain a new, more open perspective on that which is the closest at hand. One's own experiences provide a personal framework through which all subsequent perceptions are filtered, so that what may seem “objective” is really a view colored by past events and performances.

This paper presents information gained from a year spent observing and talking with teachers and teacher trainers in Italy, a country in which the statement “There is no reading problem in Italy” is often heard and just as often qualified by exceptions. By looking at the processes and procedures which match and vary from the norm of the United States, one can begin to sort out those things that may be operational or philosophical “giyens” in reading education from those things which vary in a different cultural context.