Accredited studies of cognitive psychology, which address the formalized literacy process, highlight the complexity of reading practice and its multidimensional nature: cognitive, emotional and social. Reading involves a set of processes aimed at translate, into meaning representations, the symbols and signs of written language to promote communication. This work describes an exploratory survey carried out in two secondary classes of primary school which, in the previous year, have adopted different methodological approaches in the learning path of reading-writing: the phono-syllabic method and the complex method. The main objective of the research consisted in verifying the relationship between the methods used and the level of textual comprehension and linguistic reflection, matured in the first year of primary school. From a methodological point of view, a pre-experimental design was used with two non-equivalent group and post-test to which the same entry test was administered. The results have shown that the methodological rigor, typical of the phono-syllabic method, has developed a greater capacity in the field of linguistic reflection, unlike the complex method that increases the textual comprehension.