Reading practices and their influence on studies of literacy in Portugal have been subject to a great deal of attention by scholars in general. Although Portugal is referred to as a predominantly subtitling country, and therefore a country with a great tradition of subtitling reading practices, research in this particular field is yet to be undertaken. With this paper, I intend to discuss the key role of translation for the media in Portugal with regard to established reading practices in Portuguese High School students within the compulsory schooling age. In order to show the social relevance of this particular kind of translation, a close analysis of questionnaires answered by the students will serve as a corpus.