{"id":214650,"date":"2016-03-28T16:19:05","date_gmt":"2016-03-28T19:19:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/?p=214650"},"modified":"2016-03-28T16:19:05","modified_gmt":"2016-03-28T19:19:05","slug":"literacy-for-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/literacy-for-real\/","title":{"rendered":"Literacy for real"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Literacy

Leo Ramos<\/span>Literacy class at USP\u2019s Application School, one of three included in the project to build a program for the early grades of primary schoolLeo Ramos<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

The numbers are official. According to the results of the National Literacy Assessment (ANA) in 2014, announced in September 2015 by the Ministry of Education (MEC), one in five children in the 3rd year of public school primary education is only able to read single words, and 56.7% can only locate specific information in a long text if it is in the first line.<\/p>\n

By the 3rd year\u2014which ends the first cycle of primary education\u2014children should have attained literacy. Since this goal was often unrealistic, the National Pact for Literacy at the Right Age (PNAIC) was created in 2012; it represented a commitment by federal, state and local governments to try to reach it. Two years earlier, also with the aim of improving these statistics, compulsory primary education was extended to nine years, which added a year to the literacy process.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew policies are created, but no one looks ahead to how they\u2019re going to work,\u201d says Claudemir Belintane, a professor at the School of Education of the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (USP). Although net enrollment numbers have reached almost the entire school-age population, the shortcomings in teaching literacy are not a cause for celebration. \u201cWe no longer have selective schools, but rather students who feel excluded within the classroom,\u201d says Belintane. He notes that a single classroom teacher is almost never aware of the literacy level of all the students who come to school with differing degrees in the ability to read and write. \u201cSo they find a middle standard, supporting students who are prepared and ready to learn and neglecting those who are not,\u201d says Belintane. However, differences are natural in any group of students. \u201cWe need to understand that diversity does not necessarily bring with it problematic students, but different ways of learning the written word based on the culture of each student,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Between 2011 and 2014, Belintane headed the project entitled \u201cThe challenge of teaching reading and writing within the context of nine years of primary education<\/em>,\u201d backed by the Brazilian Federal Agency for the Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (Capes). Its objective was to build a literacy and reading proposal for the first cycle. The project was developed at the Application Schools of USP and the Federal University of Par\u00e1 (UFPA), and at a public school in Pau dos Ferros, overseen by researchers from Rio Grande do Norte State University (UERN). In all, 326 children were involved in the study; undergraduate and graduate students of the three institutions participated while the schools\u2019 teachers received scholarships to participate in the research.<\/p>\n

An assessment performed by the researchers\u201412-15 in each school\u2014found that more than 90% of students were literate, in addition to having \u201ca high level of reading and textual production.\u201d The good results were confirmed by the ANA assessment of the USP school. Before the project, the grades from these schools under the Basic Education Development Index (Ideb) of the Ministry of Education were very different: 7.3 for S\u00e3o Paulo, 5.8 for Par\u00e1 and 4.9 for Rio Grande do Norte. No subsequent evaluation has been done by Ideb.<\/p>\n

Both verification and intervention were in play simultaneously, with an ambitious scope, which included diagnosis and ongoing student assessments, research into teacher training and developing a policy for coordination between grades and between cycles. \u201cWhile we did research, we also improved teaching from one year to the next,\u201d says Belintane. The first year, 2011, was one of introduction and organization of the first grade; we encountered some resistance and teachers underwent a period of adaptation. Belintane noticed a willingness on the part of teachers in general to welcome \u201ca big interruption\u201d in their classroom routines. \u201cNine years of primary education was beginning to be introduced and no one knew exactly what to do,\u201d he says. \u201cThis gave us an argument to propose changes in the cycle program.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Password

L\u00c9O RAMOS<\/span>Password game, with recombining of syllables, before entering the classroom…L\u00c9O RAMOS<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Telling stories<\/strong>
\nThe intervention emphasized orality as an introductory element to literacy and the use of various media to teach reading and writing, including electronic media. Belintane has researched and advocates the importance of orality; he wrote the book Oralidade e alfabetiza\u00e7\u00e3o \u2013 Uma nova abordagem da alfabetiza\u00e7\u00e3o e do letramento <\/em>[Orality and Literacy – A new Approach to Literacy] (Cortez Editora, 2014), which was based in part on earlier research, done with the support of FAPESP in a state school west of the city of S\u00e3o Paulo. A new book on the subject is scheduled for 2016, now with a database and observations based on the latest research. In addition to journal articles, the Challenges Project, as it became known among the participants, has so far generated four doctoral theses and six master\u2019s dissertations, as well as a documentary film now in the editing stage.<\/p>\n

The use of orality strategies encompassed storytelling and games such as riddles, tongue twisters and rhymes. These practices, originating from folk tradition, are part of a kind of collective memory, but are often overlooked in classrooms. \u201cFor teachers who are not used to using them, I ask them to go back to their own childhood memories,\u201d says Belintane. At first, even the storytelling should, according to Belintane, be done \u200b\u200bby the teacher without written support.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the findings that I brought from previous projects is that Brazil is a country with an oral tradition,\u201d says Belintane. \u201cStudents respond well when we have activities that include music, rhyme, meter or storytelling, texts that are recalled from memory. It is not about everyday conversation, which is fragmentary.\u201d Even children who do not like school and become physically agitated in the classroom usually enjoy listening to stories and respond to them by remaining still. Engaging the group in a storytelling circle is also a way of integrating children who tend to be alone.<\/p>\n

The idea of working with this kind of material is consistent with forming a textual matrix that will be needed in reading and writing, because it corresponds to narratives. \u201cIf students have no narratives in memory, their literacy is uncertain,\u201d says Belintane. Gradually, the teacher will mix storytelling and reading aloud, and then, at a later point, will tell the story orally up to its climax and then present the resolution of the plot in writing\u2014those who have difficulty will read along with a colleague. \u201cStudents have to read large amounts of text,\u201d says Belintane. \u201cGovernment assessments often suggest the text of an advertisement, comic strip or a short text. This improves statistics, but the student who reads slowly is not really a reader. Faced with a large text, the student is lost.\u201d<\/p>\n

Belintane is critical of the constructivist theory that children should be exposed to a variety of texts. He believes that in the early grades children’s imagination should be ignited and satisfied. Belintane agrees with the Spanish philosopher Jos\u00e9 Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) when, in criticizing pragmatism in education, he said children should read \u201cuseless\u201d things, that is, not necessarily related to the immediate reality they are living in. It’s a different approach than the one advocated by Magda Becker Soares, an educator and professor emeritus of the School of Education of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), and a researcher at its Center for Literacy, Reading and Writing (CEALE). She believes students from the beginning need to be exposed to the social function of writing. \u201cChildren become literate in order to read texts operating within a social context and to write about events in which writing is required,\u201d says Soares. \u201cLiteracy must be based on texts produced in real situations, with a view to actual readers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"...the

L\u00e9o Ramos<\/span>…the words to be deciphered by children on the blackboardL\u00e9o Ramos<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Uniqueness\u00a0<\/strong>
\nFor a long time Belintane has been observing children’s interest in myths, and he often relies on anthologies of folk tales, of indigenous, African or European origin, such as those compiled by Lu\u00eds da C\u00e2mara Cascudo (1898-1986). \u201cChildren entering the new first grade are only six years old, but many teachers work almost exclusively with chalk, blackboard and literacy elements, without stimulating their imaginations,\u201d says Belintane. He recommends that teachers dispense with didactic books (especially textbooks) and produce or look for contextualized materials based on an assessment of the students in the class, simultaneously using materials available in paper and also contemporary tools, from films to tablets and computer games.<\/p>\n

For those involved in the project coordinated by Belintane, this traditional scheme, centered on the classroom teacher (the one in charge and responsible for the core activities of the classroom), cannot manage the class\u2019s diversity and multiple demands. At the USP Application School, the teacher Natalia Bortolaci\u2014selected based on her experience as a grant recipient under the project in order to do her master\u2019s thesis in education, a curriculum proposal for the new first grade of primary school\u2014participated and closely followed the preparation of procedures for each child in the class. During the project, because more teachers than those employed by the school were present, the classes could be reduced from 30 to 20 students, which made personal attention possible. There were two teachers in each room, one of them to answer \u201cindividual questions.\u201d \u201cThis made possible more relevant observation and intervention in the case of students with greater difficulty learning or those arriving with less knowledge of school culture,\u201d says Bortolaci.<\/p>\n

The Challenges Project encouraged diagnostics with four levels of reading and writing proficiency and classification of the children. Bortolaci says this approach challenged all students to learn more, even those who had already mastered reading and writing. Activities on the same topic but with different degrees of difficulty were held simultaneously. And once a week, the \u201ccycle teacher\u201d invited those having the most difficulty to activities outside the classroom, which focused on orality. On other occasions, the activities mixed two groups together, the idea being that those who knew more would help those who knew less. The experiences at UFPA\u2019s Application School went further, with groups combining students from different grades. The work with four student profiles continued at UFPA even after the project ended. The idea of separating students by skill level is viewed cautiously by many educators. \u201cSeparating students draws into the school prejudices that society assigns to the most socially weak,\u201d says Leda Tfouni, a professor at the Ribeir\u00e3o Preto Faculty of Philosophy, Science and Languages and Literature\/USP.<\/p>\n

For the diagnostic work of the first grade, the Challenges Project teachers prepared student portfolios at the beginning of the year, which combined the activity logs done in preschool and, where possible, information from parents. Similar work is being carried out under the concept of \u201chinges\u201d between grades and cycles: at the end and the beginning of the year students of two consecutive grades meet and talk. The work of learning and dialogue with the student is constant. Belintane adopted the concepts of \u201clistening\u201d and \u201ctransfer\u201d from psychoanalysis in order to work with students in activities related to literacy. Games and exercises are used to make a deeper contact with children. \u201cThe student who is having problems is very sensitive and difficult to deal with objectively; but someone can be present in the class to take care of this without having to resort to an educational psychologist outside of the school environment,\u201d says Belintane.<\/p>\n

\"Class

L\u00e9o Ramos<\/span>Class participation and learning to write: attention to uniqueness and students\u2019 imaginationL\u00e9o Ramos<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Teacher training
\n<\/strong>Listening to the student borrows the \u201cfloating attention\u201d idea of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), according to which the seemingly unimportant details of a person\u2019s speech reveal something more profound. It is hoped that in this way students will find the \u201cturning point\u201d from which they go from inability to ability to understand. An example of transfer is one of a student who was very resistant to learning and had a personal history of abandonment; through storytelling activities encouraged by one of the Challenges Project researchers, he identified with the character Tom Thumb (a lonely wanderer), and this was his turning point.<\/p>\n

Challenging the practice of constructivist and social interactionist theories\u2014which preach exposing students to the full texts of various genres from the beginning of the literacy process\u2014Belintane believes in using the constituent elements of words\u2014syllables and letters\u2014in combinations and recombinations. At the USP Application School, the teacher, upon entering the classroom, plays a \u201cpassword\u201d game with students. Without looking, each student picks a card with two words (for example: chuchu <\/em>[chayote] and vagem <\/em>(string bean) and tries to form a new word with a syllable from each (chuva <\/em>[rain]). Another activity involves a list on the blackboard with strange words, which students must rearrange into familiar words by adding and taking away letters.<\/p>\n

The shortcomings of literacy teaching perceived during the Challenges Project and in Belintane\u2019s previous research inevitably led to an assessment of teacher training. In his view, anyone who teaches literacy needs to be a \u201cteacher\/reader.\u201d \u201cThe training of teachers needs to be less ideological, less marked by adherence to the latest trends, and address the actual demands of Brazilian education, especially those of the particular school in which they teach,\u201d says Belintane. \u201cThere is a lack of knowledge of literacy techniques and of the resources required to master the alphabet.\u201d Leda Tfouni agrees: “What good is a teacher with a head full of famous theories, without knowing exactly what to do with them?” Belintane believes that the Challenges Project enabled comprehensive education courses for teachers to be rethought and improved at all three universities involved in the Project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A project encourages improvements and discovers failures in public education","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[226],"coauthors":[137],"class_list":["post-214650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humanities","tag-education"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214650"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=214650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}