The aim of this paper is a reflection on the treatment given to orality in infant education. One takes as a reference the way fairy tales are presented to the students by the teachers. The approach given by the Standard Curriculum for Infant Education (1998) was analyzed in relation to oral and written language. Parts of interviews concerning the acquisition of literacy, made with infant education teachers in a city of the state of São Paulo, Brazil, and which were part of the research that resulted in the author’s MA dissertation, were also analyzed. The results of this research show that the school, believing that the children come from an unfavorable social-cultural environment, gives more weight to the written language to the detriment of oral language when teaching how to read. By being played down, orality loses its auxiliary function in the child’s symbolic construction which could help in the acquisition of literacy.
orality; fairy tales; alphabetisation