Literacy practises in kindergartens and conceptualisations about written language among Portuguese preschool children

Abstract

Our aim was to characterise the relationships between literacy practises developed in Portuguese kindergartens and children’s conceptualisations about the functions and nature of written language. The participants were 16 kindergarten teachers and 160 five-year-old children—i.e. a 1:10 teacher/child ratio. We developed an observation grid to characterise their literacy practises. It covers two main aspects of the teachers’ work: reading, writing and metalinguistic practises (14 items) and ways of supporting children’s attempts to read and write (16 items). It was used by two observers who spent two weeks in the kindergartens. The kindergarten teachers were divided into three groups depending on their literacy practises. In order to characterise the children’s conceptualisations about written language, in October and May we assessed both their perceptions of the objectives and functions of written language and their invented spelling. The results show that there are close relationships between literacy practises pursued by the three groups of kindergarten teachers and the children’s conceptualisations about written language.