Phonological awareness in literacy of youth and adults: how this relation is conceived by literacy teachers

Abstract

The teaching of reading and writing for youth and adults covers several biopsychosocial aspects, challenging the formation of the literacy teachers to face the adversities that arise. At the same time, the specifities related to the functioning of the alphabetic writing system urge to be explored in this process of literacy. Among them, we call the attention to the phonological awareness, which allows to the literate comprehend the relations between writing and speech sounds. Thus, we aim to problematize conceptions of five literacy teachers about the phonological awareness in the process of literacy of youth and adults. From semi-structured interviews, based on a sociocultural narrative approach, we performed the analysis of the narratives and we evidenced that the conceptions of the literacy teachers are permeated by a theoretical-ethodological incipience, which makes them delay the metalinguistic work (delay) and, when they promote activities of this nature, they base themselves on empiricism, improvisation and absence of planning (groping). Even so, we observed that they recognize the importance of phonological awareness to literacy of youth and adults (valorization). We highlight the necessity of knowledge in the fields of linguistics, including the phonological awareness, to be part of the formative list of literacy teachers of youth and adults, aiming ome effective learning about the functioning of the alphabetical writing system by these group of students.