Critical Reading in Middle and High School: Teacher's Voices

This article presents the results of a research project aimed at exploring Humanities and Spanish Language teachers' knowledge regarding critical reading, in order to analyze and interpret this knowledge and invite reflection. The project was developed in a Colombian public education institution with a sample of 10 Middle and High School teachers, and the information was collected through a survey of open ended questions. The results prevailingly revealed partial and unfocused conceptualizations of this type of reading, alluding either to interpretative or argumentative practices, and excluding derived reflexive evaluation, critical and writing processes; prevalence of linguistic and psycholinguistic focus, over a sociocultural one, development of workshops extracted from textbooks as reading strategy, reference to student attitudes and development as dificulties in working with critical reading, and the declared necessity to improve didactic practices in the promotion of this skill. It was concluded that teachers require theoretical and pedagogical qualification in this field.