East Timor is a new country of the Third Millennium. As a nation with a largely illiterate society of strong oral traditions, it faces many challenges in an era of globalization. Considering the importance of reading to human life, its teaching and learning must be developed from the first years of schooling of East Timorean children, taking into account the socio-cultural and linguistic reality of the country. A case study at Nularan Public School No. 1, in Díli, East Timor on the teaching and learning of reading during the first three years of schooling showed that both the guidelines of the curriculum program and the reference books employed by the school in its work with the students fail to promote the development of reflective reading, and to offer situations in which the child can expose her ideas or communicate having the text as a theme of a group discussion. It is then proposed that the processes of teaching and learning of reading at primary schools should be closely monitored and evaluated, and also that investments should be made in the qualification of human resources, as well as in didactic material and school infrastructure. It must be noted that it is not enough to have quality education inscribed in laws and in the Constitution itself: it is the work of the competent agencies that will achieve the goal of offering to East Timoreans an education in which they grow as active subjects of their discoveries and knowledge, so that they may gain access to a better life for themselves and for the community to which they belong.
East Timor; Nularan School; Teaching; Reading
