ABSTRACT
Purpose:
to describe, compare and correlate the performance of Brazilian students from 2nd to 5th grade of Elementary Schools in public and private institutions for tests of letter identification and lexical process evaluation.
Methods:
262 students attending Elementary Schools (122 from public school and 140 from private school), in the interior of São Paulo State: Public School - G1 (2nd grade, n=24); G2 (3rd grade, n=33); G3 (4th grade, n=31); G4 (5th grade, n=34) and Private School - G5 (2nd grade, n=37); G6 (3rd grade, n=34); G7 (4th grade, n=34); G8 (5th grade, n=35. Tests of Letter Identification and the Lexical process from PROLEC were applied.
Results:
the students from private school showed superior average performance, except for the same-different test between G1-G5 and G3-G7 groups. The differences were higher among the students up to de 4th grade, due to the frequent use of the phonological route. This suggests differences in teaching the Portuguese alphabetic principles in in private and public schools. For the 5th grade there was no evidence of difference for tests in which words could be read by the lexical route.
Conclusion:
the students from private school showed superior performance, except for the tests in which the phonological route was not entirely required. However, in the beginning of literacy, the phonological route was more used than the lexical route, regardless of the type of school. This study shows the education system necessity for prioritizing in early literacy the letter-sound relationship, so the students from public institutions can present better decoding results, which can directly impact reading and comprehension.
Keywords:
Reading; Evaluation; Learning; Education, Primary and Secondary
