The Community of philosophical dialogue: A possibility for strengthening reading comprehension in secondary education

Abstract

This essay argues that the State Reading Comprehension Strategy (SECTI), launched by the Government of the State of Mexico in 2025, gains formative reach when it is articulated with Matthew Lipman's Philosophy for Children, particularly with the methodology of the Community of Philosophical Dialogue. The author contrasts the aims of the state program with the three levels of reading comprehension (literal, inferential, and evaluative-intertextual) and argues that SECTI works mainly on formal aspects and the literal level, whereas the Community of Dialogue attends to the inferential and evaluative levels, seldom addressed by conventional remedial strategies. As its central contribution, the text offers a six-step hybrid model, a didactic vignette for a secondary classroom, the role of the teacher as mediator, and three qualitative assessment instruments. The proposal is situated within the New Mexican School and remains open to subsequent empirical validation through case studies.