Dongacandonga ven is the spell with Puertorican taste that initiates the reading workshop “A aprender se aprende leyendo” (Learn by reading to learn), offered by the National Book Center (Cenal, in Spanish), which has gathered a large group of teenagers, adults and even senior people, who bravely recognized they “can’t read” and opened themselve to the guide of the presenter, Rod Medina, to share their experiences and attempt to leave behind the conception of reading as a mere academic obligation, to finally begin to enjoy the infinite worlds offered by literature, and hence become ideal critical readers. The Cenal has devoted to contribute to the reading training of the Venezuelan people through these workshops, as it understands that a critical reader, who questions himself, as well as the ideas received everyday by the different means, is essential for the transformation of the individual and his life environment, an objective that has guided, and still does, the policies of the revolutionary process. The name of the workshop is not rethorical, since, even though the participants receive certain theoretical guidelines on the different types of reading, in accordance with their purposes, they indeed exercise in this gym of the mind, through playful activities such as the elaboration of narrations from images, which resulted in entertaining stories, with the slyness that characterizes the Venezuelan people. These were then read outloud for the enjoyment of all the attendants to this circle ruled by words and the desire to learn. After that, imagination took a break, placed its feet in the ground, and gave the floor to questions from participants on the need to promote reading in the schools, it is to say, that reading, within children education, may be seen and taught as a means for the enrichment of the soul, and not as a mere curriculum goal. Participants to the workshop agreed on the need to tackle reading through different ways, avoiding questions such as: ‘what is the moral of the story?’, which make reading become just a previous requirement for a test and shoo children away. As a closure, the workshop readopted its musical modality and the rhyme came, invoked by the Dongacandonga ven, to create funny verses, impossible to forget by the rythm of beating hands.