Imparare a leggere per diventare lettori: riflessioni di Emilia Formìggini Santamaria da Tolstoj a Prima Lettura

The article explores the book "The pedagogical ideas of Leo Tolstoj", which was published in 1904 by Emilia Formiggini Santamaria: resulting from her dissertation in philosophy, defended at the University of Rome the year before, the work marks the entry of the young scholar in the contemporaneous pedagogical debate, showing her interest in the production of textbooks and children's books of the time, in great part considered inadequate and ineffective in intercepting the needs of small readers.As emerges from her reflctions on Tolstoj's work, it is clear all the modernity of her thought as young educator, able to anticipate many of the themes that would characterize the future debate, during the first half of the twentieth century, on the quality of textboks and reading books.