Orientation for Initial Introduction of Written Speech in Primary School

Abstract

Reading at school traditionally is based on isolated training of this cognitive ability. Common methods are repetition, memorization and reproduction of given information. In public schools in Mexico, children never read entire books and only pages or paragraphs from the official programs. Even in private schools reading acquisition is a mechanic process, which starts from the first grade of pre-school age and continues up to the sixth grade of primary school. Cognitive tests measure the quantity of words read loudly in a minute with no attention to understanding of meaning. Alternative methods within active school and global reading can’t solve this problem, because of luck of attention for orientation, analysis of content of actions and reflexive participation of the children in their own school actions. The aim of the article is to present an example of usage of orientation for initial introduction of reading process in primary school and to compare results of the method with results of traditional method of teaching. The method of introduction of reading and writing is based on psychological conception of orientation as essential element of activity. Reading process is analysed as symbolic codification and de-codification of oral words. The provide authors added detailed analysis of phonological and phonetic system of Spanish language. The method includes introduction of actions of codification at materialized, perceptual and verbal levels with gradual passing to reading of words and sentences. The program was applied in private primary school “Kepler” in the city of Puebla (Mexico) for six years. Results of assessment of reading and writing process in experimental and control groups of school children have shown significant differences favourable for experimental groups. Among strong advantages of the method is correct pronunciation of all known and unknown words in Spanish, usage of correct space between words in writing, reduced number of orthographic mistakes.