In this paper the panorama of the teaching of reading in Spain in the second half of the XIX and the first decades of the XX is exposed. During this period the foundations of a scientific didactic of the first letters are being established, which is manifested in the publication of progressively more careful primers, both for their formal design and for the concern of the authors in that these materials are well-founded from the point of view of didactics of language. We expose how in the Ibero-American republics there is a notable advance regarding the situation in Spain and, finally, we stop at the figure of Eladio Homs, whose primer (1914) represents an important milestone in the process of modernization of the methods of literacy in Spain.

Código UNESCO / UNESCO Nomenclature: 550614, 550607