История письма и чтения. Асафова Г.К. - 142 стр.

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LEARNING TO READ

Reading out loud, reading silently, being able to carry in the mind intimate

libraries of remembered words, are astounding abilities that we acquire by

uncertain methods. And yet, before these abilities can be acquired, a reader needs

to learn a basic craft of recognising the common signs by which a society has

chosen to communicate: in other words, a reader must learn to read.

The methods by which we learn to read not only embody the conventions of

our particular society regarding literacy – the channelling of information, the

hierarchies of knowledge and power – they also determine and limit the ways in

which our ability to read is put to use.

In every literate society, learning to read is something of an initiation, a

ritualized passage out of a state of dependency and rudimentary communication.

The child learning to read is admitted into the communal memory by way of

books, and thereby becomes acquainted with a common past which he or she

renews, to a greater or lesser degree, in every reading. In medieval Jewish society,

for instance, the ritual of learning to read was explicitly celebrated. On the Feast

of Shavuot, when Moses receives the Torah from the hands of God, the boy about

to be initiated was wrapped in a prayer shawl and taken by his father to the teacher.

The teacher sat the boy on his lap and showed him a slate on which were written

the Hebrew alphabet, a passage from the Scriptures and the words “May the Torah

be your occupation.” The teacher read out every word and the child repeated it.

Then the slate was covered with honey and the child licked it, thereby bodily

assimilating the holy words. Also, biblical verses were written on peeled hard-

boiled eggs and on honey cakes, which the child would eat after reading the verses

out loud to the teacher.

Though it is difficult to generalize over several centuries and across so many

countries, in the Christian society of the late Middle Ages and the early

Renaissance learning to read and write – outside the Church – was the almost

exclusive privilege of the aristocracy and (after the thirteenth century) the upper