SPECIFIC KNOWLEDGE

Psychogenesis of language The theory of psychogenesis of written language,

according to Ferreiro and Teberosky, consists of
writing, by Emilia Ferreiro and suppose that a series of processes is necessary
of reflection on language to pass to
Ana Teberosky a writing; but, in turn, the writing
constituted allows new processes of
Published by: Abner Melanias on: 12/25/2009 reflection that could hardly have existed
without her. The psychogenetic process of
The book by Emilia Ferreiro and Ana Teberosky - the construction of written language is characterized
fruit of the research obtained during two through numerous social interactions and for the
years of experimental work with children experiences of the learning subject in practice
between four and six years - aims to to read and write. Internally, the concepts are
explain how the process occurs through which built on a provisional basis e
writing constitutes an object of relatively stable in the evolution of
knowledge for the child, that is, writing, learning, thus being an active process,
as every representation is based on a dynamic, assisted by the sequence of
mental construction that creates its own contradictions and cognitive conflicts.
rules. The investigations of Emilia and her
collaborators seek to demonstrate their role
The work 'Psychogenesis of Written Language' is
active subject in the drafting process
structure in eight chapters. In the first, of
individual written. In the relationship with writing,
in an introductory manner, the authors point to
the child formulates and tests hypotheses of nature
the basic principles that guided the construction
cognitive regarding how they are written of the experimental project in which the method
words. The child, even very small,
clinical or critical exploration, developed
has the ability to pose problems, create by Piaget, constitutes the theoretical basis of
hypotheses, test them and build truths
reference. However, Ferreiro and Teberosky
interpretive systems in the search for they do not take the Piagetian theory as a "dogma"
understanding of the universe around you.
they start from it to prove the general validity
and apply it to still unexplored domains
In the authors' words, the objective was "[...] starting from this perspective. The studies
try an explanation of the processes and the experiments involved children from
ways in which the child is able to various social media in different countries
to learn to read and write. We understand by (Argentina, Mexico, Spain, and Brazil).
process the path that the child should take
to traverse to understand the characteristics,
Chapter two: The formal aspects of
the value and the function of writing, as long as it
graphic and its interpretation" addresses the
constituted in the object of your attention, therefore,
formal characteristics that a text must have
"to your knowledge" (p.18). The research of to possess in order to allow an act of reading: i)
Emília Ferreiro had such an impact on the
sufficient amount of characters, ii)
concept of literacy that dismantled the variety of characters, iii) relationship between
theories and possible explanations that the
numbers and letters and the recognition of letters
Brazilians took decades to explain the individuals and iv) distinction between letters and signs
failure in initial literacy. It was the
of punctuation. Given these assumptions, the
studies by the author that allowed differentiation
children define letters and numbers, which to them
spelling literacy. Today it is known
are presented as objects in opposition
that the spelling errors are not
to drawing. A distinction of
related to the way of speaking and not with the
numbers/letters/punctuation marks occur due to
coexistence or not with printed texts.
counts of socially acquired knowledge
transmitted, then systematized by the
child. One of the criteria used by

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The selection of words and phrases was a blacksmith. Level 5: Alphabetic hypothesis (the child
presented to the children, that is, the repertoire understand the way of construction
words should not be included in manuals of of the writing code).
literacy and present a relationship
semantic relationship with each other (to be part of the same)
The relevance of this work, after twenty years of
field lexical): foods animals its first edition is not only in the
toys, among others. theoretical revolution generated by the discussion of
your postulates, considering the documents
Chapters three and four address the produced by the education departments of
hypotheses created by the children regarding the era, which recommended the use of such
writing. In this sense, the iconic representation assumptions. The great value of 'Psychogenesis
(image) serves as an expression of your of written language" was to allow studies
thought through drawings, not having the of pedagogical experimentation built
notion of writing in the proper sense. a didactic approach focused on language,
Writing is the same as drawing. By bringing the texts of the world inside the
other side, non-iconic representation (without school and seeking to bring closer the practices of
image) goes beyond the drawing, functioning teaching of the language of reading practices and
as an expression of the child's thought real writings, what has been disseminated in
through doodles, hence the term 'non-iconic'. large scale by the Ministry of Education
The child begins the concept of writing, but (MEC) in the Parameters and References
still does not recognize the letters of the alphabet and its National Curricular Guidelines (PCN's) for the
sound value. basic education. The concepts of Ferreiro and
Teberosky points in the direction of a
According to Ferreiro and Teberosky, every child goes through increasing understanding of the processes of
learning of different contents, without
by structural levels of written language up to
that appropriates the complexity of the system distort the object to be taught, adapting to it
to the journey of the apprentice, that is,
alphabetical. These are the structural levels that
they are based on the theory of psychogenesis, and that the initial literacy is of a conceptual nature and
chapters five, six, and seven will address in it constitutes a crucial issue to
understand the pedagogical directions taken by
depth. The levels of writing, according to
Psychogenesis of written language is: Brazilian basic education in recent years.

PSYCHOGENESIS OF LANGUAGE
Level 1: Pre-syllabic (a child no
establishes a link between speech and WRITING
written and has global reading,
FERREIRO, Emilia; TEBEROSKY, Ana.
individual and unstable of what it writes: Psychogenesis of Written Language. Porto Alegre: Arts
only she knows what I wanted to write), Doctors, 1985.
Level 2: Intermediate Syllabic (the child
starts to become aware that From the 1970s, psycholinguist Emilia
exists some relationshipbetween Ferreiro revolutionized literacy with the
pronunciation and writing, literacy process through a
Level 3: Syllabic Hypothesis (the child tries hypothetical investigation in different fields
phoneticize the writing and give it sound value of the acquisition of reading and writing.
to the letters,
Level 4: Syllabic-Alphabetic Hypothesis or FERREIRO sought to study himself
Intermediate II (the child can) subject: the cognizing subject. She sought
combine vowels and consonants in a actively understand the world around them
same word, in an attempt to to resolve the questions that this world
combine sounds, without becoming, still,
provokes. It is not a subject that expects that
your socializable writing) someone who has knowledge of

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SPECIFIC KNOWLEDGE

transmit it through an act of benevolence. It is In 1979, Emilia Ferreiro together with

a subject who learns basically through Ana Teberosky wrote the book entitled
your own actions on the objects of the world “Psychogenesis of Written Language”. His work was
and builds its own categories of a milestone in the area, highlighting that children
thoughts at the same time as they do not arrive at school knowing anything about the
organize your world. Psycholinguistics language. According to constructivist theory,
Argentina Emília Ferreiro obtained her doctorate from every child goes through four stages until
University of Geneva and was guided by be literate.
Jean Piaget and had as a collaborator Ana
Teberosky. Psychologist and researcher of
Psycholinguistics allows us to introduce the
Municipal Institute of Barcelona, since 1974
dedicated himself to the application of psychogenetic theory
written while the object of knowledge, and the
learning subject, while the subject
directly in the classroom, focusing on the cognoscente. The conception of learning
impact of environment collaboration inherent to genetic psychology assumes
bilinguals (Catalan and Spanish) about the
necessarily that there are processes of
literacy of children. Innovated by using the learning, of the subject that does not depend on
master theory to investigate a field that methods. The acquisition of knowledge is a
it had not been the subject of Piagetian study.
result of the subject's own activity.
Piaget researched more deeply the
knowledge of internal source, to which
denominated logical-mathematical, and which refers to According to the constructivist conception, the
to the establishment of relationships between the understanding of a knowledge object
objects, facts and phenomena exceed, is closely linked to the possibility of
therefore, the limits of physical knowledge the subject to reconstruct this object for having
observable and actions, requiring greater understood what your laws are
development of mental structures. composition.

Emilia Ferreiro began with an interest in Studying this evolutionary process defined the
discover what the construction process was of the stages of its evolution that have been
written, when planning experimental situations. proven by various researchers.
It was sought for the child to put in
evidence the writing, just as it sees reading According to constructivist theory, all
how she understands and the problems just like she a child goes through four phases until it is
it proposes to you. The result of the investigation literate: pre-syllabic, syllabic, syllabic-
Emilia Ferreiro provided two clues: alphabetical and alphabetical.
On one hand, the learning process
the child can go through unsuspected ways to
the teacher, and on the other hand, what child of class Therefore, educator Emilia Ferreiro,
the decline does not start from 'zero' in the first grade.
showed that the child, from an early age, has
hypothesis about reading and writing, that
According to Emilia Ferreiro's theory,
need to be known by the teacher and
Knowledge is built from the subject.
explored at its various levels, for a
cognizer and the object to be known, in which the
greater efficiency in the teaching process
the object serves as an occasion for the
learning. The transition from one level to
knowledge develops. It's not about
otherwise, in the literacy process, originates from
simply employ the "Piagetian test"
from the student's awareness of
to establish new correlations, but yes, insufficiency of the hypotheses thus far proposed by him
to use the assimilator schemes that the
formulated to explain reading and writing.
theory allows us to build to discover
new observables. From here, a construction was made
a psychogenetic theory of acquisition of
written language.

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 texts;
PSYCHOGENESIS OF LANGUAGE • Frequent the library, newsstand,
etc;
WRITING • Talk about the function of writing;
• Use movable type to search
Source: Group Activity Suggestions names, reproduce your own name or those of
friends
The research of Emília Ferreiro and Ana • Letter bingo;
Teberosky points to the hypotheses that the • Oral production of stories;
child builds in this process. These • Spontaneous writing;
hypotheses are described in his book "A • Collective texts having the teacher as
psychogenesis of Written Language. write;
• Expand the repertoire of lyrics;
PRE-SYLLABIC HYPOTHESIS • Reading the names of the children in the class,
when this is significant;
Features: • Compare and relate words;
• Writing and drawing have the same • Produce texts of shape no
meaning; conventional
• It does not relate writing to speech; • Identify known characters to
• Does not differentiate letters from numbers; based on their names, or write their
• Reproduces typical traits of writing by names according to their possibility;
disorderly form; • Reciting memorized texts: nursery rhymes,
• Do you believe that great things have a name poems, songs, etc;
big and small things have one name • Activities that require
small name (nominal realism); recognize and complete the initial letter and the
• Use the letters of the name to write everything; final lyrics;
• Does not accept that it is possible to write and read • Writing of lists in which this is included
with fewer than three letters; meaning: list what we use at the time
• Global reading: Reads the word as a at the snack, what is there at a party of
everything. birthday, etc.

Conflicts experienced by the child at this stage: Syllabic Hypothesis

• What signs do I use to write words?
• Understanding the meaning of written signs. Characteristics:
• For each phoneme, use a letter to
Advances: to represent it;
• Differentiate drawing from writing; • You can, or cannot, assign a sound value to the letter;
• Understand the letters and their sounds; • You can use many letters to write and to
• Identify and write your own name; read it, point to a letter for each
• Identify the names of the colleagues; phoneme;
• Realizing that we use letters in different • When writing sentences, you can use one letter.
positions. for each word.

Favorable activities: Conflicts experienced by the child:

• Draw and write what you drew; • The writing is linked to the pronunciation of
• Use, recognize and read the name in parts of the word?
call, schedule • How to adjust writing to speech?
activities, objects, using it in games, • What is the minimum number of letters?
tickets, etc; necessary to write?
• Having contact with different carriers of

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SPECIFIC KNOWLEDGE

Advances: • You can emphasize the writing of the sound only of the
• Assign sound value to the letters; vowels or just the consonants ball= AO or
• Accepting that many letters are not needed
to write, only what is necessary to • Assigns the value of the phoneme in some
represent the speech; kblo

Favorable activities: Conflicts experienced by the child at this stage:

• All activities from the previous level; • How to make her writing be read by
• Compare and relate spellings of words other people?
various • How to separate the words in writing if
• Write small memorized texts. Doesn't this happen in speech?
(chants, poems, songs, tongue-twisters) • How to adjust writing to the quantity
languages...); minimum number of characters?
• Complete words with letters for
highlight your sound: camel = c__m__l__ Advances:
you are • Use more than one letter to represent the
• Relate characters based on their names phoneme when necessary;
written; • Assign the sound value of the letters.
• Relate the figure to the words, through the Favorable activities:
recognition of the initial letter; • The same as the previous level;
• Having contact with conventional writing • Separate the words of a text
in meaningful activities: recognize memorized;
letters in a small known text; • Generalize the knowledge for
• Reading known texts; write words you don't know:
• Relate memorized texts to your associate the GA of the name GABRIELA
graphy; to write girl, drawer...
• Crossword; • Dictation of known words;
• Word search; • Produce short texts;
• Complete the gaps in texts and words; • Rewriting stories.
• Build an illustrated dictionary, starting from
that the theme is meaningful; ALPHABETICAL
• Highlight rhymes between the words;
• Use the mobile alphabet for writing Characteristics:
significant; • Understand the social function of writing:
• Various games to associate drawing and communication
your name; Do you know the sound value of all or almost all?
• Put letters in alphabetical order; all the letters;
• Count the number of words of a • It shows stability in writing the
phrase. words;
• Understand that each letter corresponds
SYLLABIC-ALPHABETIC to the lowest sound values of the syllable;
• Try to adjust the writing to the speech;
Characteristics: • Reading with or without image;
• Begins concern with the issues
• Understand that writing represents the orthographic;
sounds of speech; • Separate the words when writing sentences;
• Realize the need for more than one • Produces texts in a conventional manner.
lyrics for most of the syllables;
• Recognize the sound of the letters;

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Conflicts experienced by the child at this stage:
• Why do we write in one way and
Shall we talk about another one?

• How to distinguish letters, syllables, and phrases?

• How to learn the conventions of the language
writing?

Advances:
• Concern about spelling issues
the textual elements (paragraph and punctuation);
• Use italics.

Favorable activities:
• All of the above;
• Various readings;
• Writing lists of words that
they present the same regularities
orthographic errors at times when this
be meaningful;
• Activities based on a text: reading,
location of words or phrases, sort
the text;
• Various games with letter bingo and
words, strength...