The tale and the re-telling in promotion of orality: an experiment in Preschool Education (Portugal)

Abstract

This study of qualitative nature, presents an educational experience held in the academic year of 2010/2011, in a classroom of a public kindergarten of Portugal. Selecting 4 kids (two with 4 years and two with 5 years) of a group of 17 children, the kindergarten teacher chose four stories of the Portuguese ational Plan for Reading and reviewed the children re-telling analyzing the level of sequencing and the inclusion of knowledge and personal experiences (MARQUES, 1990). The results revealed the potentialities of the tale/re-telling in the promotion of orality, namely, i) taking the kids to find strategies to start and to finish the stories and using expressions of introduction and conclusion of the stories and ii) encouraging children to apply knowledge of stories, of the projects developed in the kindergarten context and from their personal experiences. These data, situated in this specific educational context, reveal patterns of oral discourse organization of these children and lead us to reflect on the role of telling/re-telling in the promotion of orality in context of pre-school Education.