Ortografia - dificuldades x arbitrariedades: uma proposta de intervenção para alunos do 6º ano do ensino fundamental

Abstract

Due to the fact that orthography is an aspect of the language, which aims to standardize writing, to facilitate reading, and to improve communication between users, this thesis investigated, from an interventionist perspective, the barriers that prevent the improvement of students’ linguistic skills regarding the learning of orthographically correct writing. Its objective was to analise students of a public elementary school in the capital city of João Pessoa, in the State of Paraíba, to overcome these barriers, not only by identifying them, but also by identifying the ways to prevent them. The conclusion is that it is the role of the school, namely, of the teachers who teach the students' mother tongue, to propose situations to the students that will bring them closer to the appropriate spelling of the Portuguese language. Writing errors are common in the early years of elementary school, and from the data compiled and reviewed, what we have seen is that these errors last until the final years of this phase of schooling. From this perspective, to carry out our research, we mainly used the work of Sousa (1999), Ferreiro and Teberosky (1999), Morais (2003, 2009), Bagno (2007) Gombert (2003), Cagliari (2009) and Zorzi (2003), among others, which provided the theoretical framework behind our study, by providing highly pertinent discussion on this subject. Therefore, we focused our attention to these spelling errors, in an attempt to understand the major incidences, their main causes, the criteria we used to identify them, as well as what we can do to minimize students' difficulties related to writing skill. For this, we identified the main spelling errors made by students in the sixth grade from a public school in João Pessoa-PB. As a research instrument, in addition to observation, we have adopted a script of activities, as an intervention proposal, in which we used strategies that lead the students to reflect on the use of spelling in their written productions so that, in the sense of acquisition, they can produce writing that is orthographically correct. The results of the analysis indicated a high incidence of errors related to verbal termination, and the noticeable interference of enunciation while writing. The interventional proposals were effective, since we minimized the difficulties presented by the students regarding the orthographically correct writing. Finally, we realized that the systematic teaching of orthographic rules leads to relevant and significant improvement if done in a reflective and interactive way. We hope that our work will contribute to the teaching of this facet of the language, thereby directly helping Portuguese language teachers and, consequently, the students.