We explore the concepts of literacy and critique, or the reading and writing of ideologies, understanding "ideology" as the author's point of view in his text on any question (political, social, sports, etc.). We analyse the field of semantics of both of the concepts, their philosophical, pedagogical and linguistic roots, and the words used in several languages to refer to them. We formulate finally the theoretical distinction between a critical reader and an uncritical one, based on the contributions of the Critical Discourse Analysis, and we exemplify it with the case of a political five-word board.