Ensino da Ortografia da Língua Portuguesa: o Uso de Maiúsculas e Minúsculas na Escrita de Alunos do Ensino Fundamental

Abstract

Language acquisition demands knowledge propelled by the need people have to integrate socially. In this process schooling performs an important role for it contributes to the development of communicative competencies, in this investigation, the writing ability. Because of that in the Primary Course, language ortographic rules become a crucial aspect given the need for patterning the forms of writing words. Ortography is ruled-conventioned and on account of that its teaching demands knowledge on writing that should allow for the competent use of language in the various situations of social interaction. As it considers all those aspects, and due to its ineditism, this research justifies itself. Its main thesis is the teaching of ortography focusing on the use of capital and small letters by students of the Primary Course since, though they were expected to dominate those basic rules and the functioning of the graphic-phonemic system of the Portuguese language and of certain writing conventions, specifically the use of capital and small letters, they failed to write accuratly, as the analysis of some textual productions of students in the Primary Course School in Curralinhos, Piauí revealed the misuse of those rules, most probably caused by the lack of knowledge about them. Based upon these facts, there emerged the hypothesis that the students created their own rules for the use of capital and small letters, and utilized them at random. Because of that the objective of this work is to contribute to the teaching and learning of writing by students, privileging the use of capital and small letters. To achieve such a goal the investigation was developed with the research-action methodology which followed steps such as the identification of ´erros´ in the use of those letters and the collaborative elaboration of rules that could orient clientle to use them properly. The final product of this research is an Intervening Pedagogical Plan whose aim is to help at least minimize or solve the students´ writing problems detected during the development of this work. The analysis of the results of the application of the Pedagogical Plan confirmed the hypothesis raised and showed that the activities contributed to improve the use of capital and small letters as the the situations of correct use of those letters outnumbered the incorrect ones.