Reading and writing are complex processes that currently represent a growing problema for most education systems around the world. In this paper we present some historical features of the way in which during long periods of time, humans built the cognitive skills that led to the construction of graphic systems with shared meaning and reflect it into different texts to share information, ideas, emotions or ways of thinking. School is the institution created especially to teach young people how to read and write. However, this system has not produced satisfactory results, as is the case with the tests recentlyadministered in the Panamanian education system, specifically in the basic and higherlevels of education, which showed low results. This work was developed at the universitylevel and presents some results of the analysis of Spanish and Psychology bachelor’sdegrees course programs, which purpose was to show in what way it expresses the presenceof competences related to reading and writing in their course programs. We concludedthat both degree programs include a weak articulation of these processes, expressed ascompetences, and its treatment in the various elements of the programs.
