O uso e a compreensÃo das marcas de pontuaÃÃo por crianÃas / The use and the understanding of punctuation marks by children

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2003

RESUMO

Adopting a developmental perspective, the present study aimed to investigate the use and the understanding of punctuation marks by children, at different instruction levels, in the school context. The study involved 42 children between 6 and 8 years old, from a group of kindergarten (21 children) and 1st grade (21 children) from a private school of the City of Recife, the capital of Pernambuco state. Each participant had to fulfill two tasks, Production and Understanding, applied in two sessions. In the first session (production), (collectively applied in each group), the examiner read a story aloud to the children, each group at a time. The children were requested, then, individually, to perform a writing activity in which they had to reproduce the story they heard. In the second session (understanding), individually applied, the examiner showed to each child the story that she had written on her own in the previous session. Then, in a clinical interview, the child was asked to identify the punctuation marks that she had produced in her text, and to explain the uses and functions she attributed to them. In the Production Task, it was surveyed, initially, the punctuation marks used, their variety and location in the reproduced text. Next, it was analyzed the conventional and non-conventional uses of the punctuation marks. Then, the child, as a producer of punctuation marks, was taken as the analysis unit. Each child was classified in a production level that reflected her ability of using punctuation in a varied and conventional way. In the Understanding Task, it was possible to identify different types of explanations concerning the uses and functions attributed to each punctuation mark. The children presented pertinent explanations to each punctuation mark they had used in their reproduction. Significant differences were found between the two groups as for the punctuation production. The 1st graders used more frequently and a wider variety of punctuation marks. They were also able to set the internal and external limits of the text with punctuation marks, and distribute them in either narrative or direct speech. Kindergarten children, on the other hand, tended not to use any punctuation mark in their reproductions, or, when they did, just a single punctuation mark was used, which, in general, was placed in the final external limit of the text. These results make evident the evolutional aspects and the influence of formal instruction in the use of punctuation. The results regarding understanding also revealed differences between the groups concerning the uses and functions of the punctuation in a text. 1st graders attributed several uses and functions to a same punctuation mark, while the kindergarten children tended to attribute a single use. As a conclusion, this study points out that there is a progression in the use, as well as in the children s understanding of uses and functions of punctuation marks. This progression is influenced by the formal instruction received in the school context. However, even the children without formal instruction present hypotheses concerning the punctuation marks they use

ASSUNTO(S)

psicologia cognitiva use pontuaÃÃo uso, compreensÃo punctuation understanding

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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