The present article analyses the teaching of Portuguese Language in textbooks used in the elementary schools located in the areas of Italian settlements in the states of São Paulo and Paraná. It seeks to understand how these teaching materials were written and distributed, considering that they were constituent parts of the teaching of literacy to Italian immigrants and their descendants in these colonies. We attempted to map the strategies that culminated in the designation, distribution, and in the reading and writing learning modes. Just as well to identify the peculiarities and methodological guidelines, the selected contents and clues about the usage instructions and limits of this materiality. The time studied ranges from the years 1883 to 1920, period when these immigrants settled in the agricultural colonies from the abovementioned states. Besides some textbooks spotted in the libraries and testimonials from former students, the sources of documents for this research consisted of official letters, petitions, inventories, reports and the educational legislation. The documents can be found in the Public Archive of the State of São Paulo and the Public Archive of the State of Paraná. As well as magazines and newspapers from the period which are also stored in the corresponding newspapers and magazines archives. Therefore, up to the moment it was possible to identify some vestiges of the teaching of Portuguese Language in textbooks used in the Italian colonies from São Paulo and Paraná. Textbooks were part of the materiality of the colonial elementary schools similarly to the other isolated public schools. The history of the textbook in the colonial schools was characterized by its insufficient distribution and by the range of teaching proposals for reading and writing. With a view to ensure the effectiveness of Portuguese Language learning among foreign students, the government undertook the standardization of textbooks, increasing their quantity and favouring the ones which approached certain contents, mainly those which strived to instil content aiming at forming the Brazilian citizen.