Reasons for Reading in Infancy and the Child’s Development under the Light of Historical-Cultural Theory: A Path to Understand the Development of the Reading Ability in Childhood

Abstract

This essay is a bibliographical-theoretical research that focuses on understanding the reasons and the conditions necessary for the development of the reading ability since infancy and its relation to the child’s development. Thus, it aims at comprehending the process of literacy learning in teaching and in learning the ability to read since infancy. The objectives and methodology meant to understand the relationship between written language, reading and the development of early readers in their relation to the book. For achieving that, we considered the concept of what a child is, of a child’s development, of the reading ability, and the formation of the early reader as the basis for the discussion, under Historical-Cultural Theory. The results show that when a child is treated as an individual who is beyond classification and categorization—which establishes a child’s development as a linear process defined by nature—to view her as an individual that constructs thoughts, language, imagination, and affect, thus constructing the self, in its life history and in the rela-tions with the other.