Preditores linguísticos da alfabetização em crianças pré-escolares de baixa renda

Abstract

Introduction: Brazil has one of the worst levels of reading, as assessed by the Programme for International Student Assessment. The development of reading has been the subject of studies with preschoolers, but still scarce in the country. Purpose: To characterize the performance of linguistic predictors of literacy in low income preschool children and to relate socioeconomic factors, vocabulary and phonological awareness. Method: The research presents two studies: in the first, the sample was composed of 96 children of the last year of the kindergarten evaluated regarding phonological discrimination, speech production, vocabulary, phonological awareness, rapid automatic naming, phonological work memory and letters identification; in the second, 34 children were evaluated for vocabulary, phonological awareness and a socioeconomic and cultural questionnaire was applied with the child’s parents. Results: The study 1 showed poor performance in vocabulary, phonological awareness, working memory, rapid automatic naming and letters identification; there was a significant correlation between phonological awareness and working memory, phonological awareness and letter identification, rapid automatic naming and letter identification. In study 2, a significant correlation was found only between the percentage of correct answers in the professions field of vocabulary and the frequency of excursions performed by the child in the last 12 months in the questionnaire. Conclusion: Low income preschool children presented lower performance in terms of linguistic predictors of literacy; these present developmental correlation with each other. The findings of the study reaffirm the importance of periodic monitoring from early childhood education to avoid problems related to literacy in later years of the school life of these children.