Reading strategies and teacher training: to understand the text: proposals and experiences in the context of elementary public schools

Abstract

Historically alienated from their right to read and from the power of the full exercise of the word, the overwhelming majority of the Brazilian population is still creditor of our immense social debt of access to this educational, cultural, civilizing good. Data from international and national assessments still speak of the alarming condition of our students in the domain of reading ability. In the interior of the state of São Paulo, this reality is still present, even though there are great efforts to implement public reading policy programs. Research aimed at helping to solve such impasses and challenges in the training of young readers are essential and necessary. In this direction, the proposed project will be carried out in conjunction with two research centers, the CELLIJ (Center for Studies in Reading and Children's and Youth Literature) of FCT - UNESP, Presidente Prudente (SP) and CEPLE (Center for Study and Research in Reading and Writing) from the FFC - Unesp, Marília (SP). Entitled "Reading strategies and teacher training in São Paulo: to understand the text - proposals and experiences in the context of public elementary schools II", in the research line Improving Public Education at FAPESP, the project aims to analyze how teachers of a city in São Paulo has created conditions for the student to understand the text; and to provide theoretical-methodological knowledge about reading comprehension, aiming at an effective contribution to the formation of autonomous and critical readers. Twelve schools were elected to participate in the project, all from Assis, a municipality in the west of São Paulo, with a teacher from each of them as participants in the research. Three axes are articulated with the stated objective and require specific methodologies, with appropriate instruments for data generation. The first will be based on bibliographic research and the study of the text, based on theories about textual comprehension and reading strategies, in addition to questionnaires, to verify the teaching of reading comprehension, access and circulation of texts in schools. The last two will be based, in general, on ethnographic research, without disregarding the articulation between the quantitative and qualitative models, and without taking them as dichotomous, but complementary. From the analysis of the teaching methodologies used by the teachers and the training carried out, the proposing team will be able to evaluate the activities and the reading strategies with the most effective results, in addition to the methodological procedures most appreciated by the students and their teachers. In this way, it will be possible to implement, in the investigated municipality, a reading comprehension program based on intense work with the various textual genres and to develop didactic material of "good practices" to disseminate the teaching of reading comprehension in other municipalities. (AU)