Ortografia: concepções e saberes de professoras alfabetizadoras - um estudo colaborativo

Abstract

The current study aims to understand how literacy teachers understand Brazilian Portuguese spelling and its teaching in the early grades of primary school. We aim to problematize this teaching and collaborate with literacy practices in a school in the Salvador Municipal School System. To this end, we propose the following specific objectives: to identify, in teaching discourses, the conceptions and knowledge related to spelling and its teaching; to mobilize the knowledge that underpins literacy practice and supports spelling instruction; to mobilize knowledge that can contribute to positively transforming the practice of literacy teachers involved in the research; and to identify whether the teachers' conceptions align with the Salvador Municipal School System's curriculum regarding spelling instruction. Methodologically, we conducted qualitative research inspired by the collaborative approach, as this type of research establishes a connection between the world of research and the world of practice. This approach involves the contribution of practicing teachers to the investigation of a research object, as well as the mobilization of academic knowledge in the school setting. As a data collection/production technique, we used workshops as a locus of encounter with others. The workshops were organized into activities involving initial welcome/provocation, spelling-focused activities, a leisurely reading of a literary text, and a closing session. These activities were distributed across three meetings/moments (shifts), lasting a total of twelve hours. In these activities, we presented the use of several techniques, tools, movements, and resources (group dynamics, discussion circles, games, pedagogical circuits, written records). In conjunction with the offices, we also used a questionnaire to profile three teachers, situating them as socio-historical subjects, inserted in a culture, time and space, endowed with knowledge and skills.For data analysis, we were inspired by the methodological proposal of the Nuclei of Meaning (Aguiar; Ozella, 2013, 2006; Aguiar; Voigt, 2017; Aguiar; Aranha; Soares, 2021), which is grounded in Socio-Historical Psychology. Broadly speaking, this approach understands the subject as an active, social, and historical being in constant change. Through interpretative analysis of the teachers' verbal expressions, intonations, gestures, hesitations, emphases, and even silences in the proposed situations and interactions during the pedagogical workshops, we were able to discuss deeper into the areas of meaning of this group of teachers and grasp the varied content that diffused the four nuclei established, each composed of diverse indicators, articulated with excerpts from the teachers' discourses at various moments during the workshops. The central issue that emerged from the analyses was the superficial understanding of orthographic standards as an object of knowledge. Uncertainties, insecurities, and inconsistencies regarding the nature and structure of orthographic standards were evident in all groups. These misunderstandings can constitute barriers to teaching practices aimed at minimizing the incidence of children who complete Cycle I with incipient knowledge of orthographic standards. The interpretations presented here reveal the long road we still need to travel to ensure that Pedagogy graduates have a solid understanding of orthographic standards and their systematic and productive teaching. However, we also realized the emergence of affluent and plentiful movements of collaboration, participation, restlessness, and discovery, which demonstrate this group of teachers' wish for learning and improving their professional practice.