In this theoretical article, we discuss the notion of literacy – reception (reading) component and general (intermediate) reading strategies (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008) to be taught to middle and high school students. These strategies can be transferred and adapted to meet the specific needs of subject-specific literacies, including literacy in the Quebec and Canadian history course. They are also applicable to different media (traditional, digital) and text forms (textual, visual, audio and video). We will then present a tool for recording reading strategies developed as part of a research and development project (Legault, 2021) based on a review of the literature and promoting concerted work by secondary school teams on the development of students’ literacy.