Characterization of orthographic performance of oclusive phonemas in the writing of children in the beginning of literacy

Author(s)

Isabela de Oliveira Pezarini

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Marília. 2017-05-24.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências. Marília
• Defense date: 2017-04-24
• Advisor: Lourenço Chacon Jurado Filho

Abstract

Objectives: describe the orthographic performance of children regarding the recording of Brazilian Portuguese occlusive phonemes; verify if the absence of the phonological accent influences the occurrence of possible errors in the orthography of these phonemes; classify the distribution pattern of these possible errors; classify the distribution of possible errors in traits of point or voicing; and check the direction of the traits involved in these possible errors. Methods: 21,049 orthographic records of occlusive phonemes extracted from 1,064 textual productions of 76 children from the first grade of Elementary School were analyzed in two public schools in the interior of São Paulo State. Regarding the first objective: the data were divided into hits and errors; for the second objective, the errors were classified as accentuated syllables - tonics and tonic monosyllables - and unstressed – pre tonic, post tonic and unstressed monosyllables; for the third objective, the errors were initially classified in substitutions and omissions; the substitutions were sub-classified in non-phonological orthographic, phonological orthographic and hybrid. The phonological orthographic was further subdivided as they involved phonemes within and outside the class of occlusives; concerning the fourth objective, phonological substitutions within the class were classified as involving traits of point or voicing; and finally, regarding the fifth objective, the traits were analyzed according to the direction of the substitution involving both point and voicing. Results: a higher number of correct answers (20,318) was observed when compared to the number of errors (729), which suggests a significant stability of children (earlier in the first year of literacy) in the registry of graphemes corresponding to occlusive phonemes; as for the second objective, there was a greater concentration of errors within the unaccented syllables (440) when compared to those in accented syllables (289), which is due to the fact that unaccented syllables present acoustic characteristics less favorable to the auditory perception of the scribe; for the third objective, we observed a distribution of errors in substitutions (523) and omissions (206); in the substitutions, orthographic phonological (298), hybrids (132) and non-phonological orthographic (93) errors were observed. Extracting the omissions which are explained by linguistic variation like “correno” for "correndo" , most of the substitutions are justified by the phenomenon of orthographic transparency; still on the third objective, regarding the distribution of phonological orthographic errors, there was a higher occurrence involving the occlusive phonemes (258) when compared to phonemes outside this class (40), which is justified by the fact that the children already show up able to perceive phonetic-phonological characteristics that make possible the distinction between phonemes of different classes; as to the fourth objective, a greater number of phonological errors within the class involving voicing (222) was observed when compared to errors involving point (47), a result that suggests that the acquisition of occlusives in children's writing follows, to a certain extent, the trajectory of their acquisition in speech; finally, regarding the fifth objective, in relation to the point errors, it was observed that the majority involved the coronal trait, a result that goes against the literature, since greater instability was expected in the dorsal trait; still regarding the fifth objective, in relation to voicing errors, there was no statistical difference between the directions of the substitutions despite the numerical difference. Conclusion: The analysis of the global orthographic performance, regarding the specificity of the errors, allows us to understand that in addition to phonetic-phonological characteristics related to the class of occlusives, the initial writing is influenced by other factors, such as the transparency/opacity of the writing of these phonemes and the linguistic variation. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 15/03208-7 - Orthographic performance characterization of occlusive phonemes in children's writing while starting literacy
• Grantee: Isabela de Oliveira Pezarini
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master