The College of Mexicothrough the Linguistics and Education Seminar (SEMLE) and the Red Fox Foundation, together with the support of the National Council for Science and Technology (Conacyt), have designed the course The challenges of initial literacywhose objective is to take up in depth the thread of learning the written language (which includes reading and writing) returning to its first root as a complex process of reflective construction.
This became of crucial importance after the peculiar situation that the Covid-19 pandemic has caused, “what we knew is that the children who were going to miss school, who were going to be isolated, were going to lose part of the socialization and the process they require to start their school life”, explains the doctor in Hispanic linguistics, Rebeca Barriga Villanueva. For this reason, the ultimate goal of the course is to prepare the teachers of lower elementary school (1st, 2nd and 3rd) and interested parents, so that they can diagnose, with pertinent instruments, the state of progress or lag in this appropriation process.
“It is a time of great uncertainty, especially for the educational situation,” says the co-creator and coordinator of this effort. For this reason, they decided that from the Linguistics and Education Seminar, based on two main axes: Motivation for interculturality and written language, a resource of four modules could be generated that could be consulted massively through a virtual platform. .
A complex process, beyond learning the letters
Barriga Villanueva explains that this project began right in the pandemic, through a call from Conacyt, “at that time we thought that it would be a short-term situation, with projects where some way out was presented to alleviate the problem of confinement, but unfortunately this lasted longer than we all thought.”
Today this project developed by four specialists is in its third call and with a view after the pandemic. On this occasion, a follow-up of results will also be sought, “to know what modifications are required and continue adjusting the alternatives.”
The idea for the course arose in 2006, with an individual investigation by the specialist, who had analyzed urban schools with migrant indigenous populations, “I realized that the problem was serious, that these children are no longer migrants, they have migrant parents. and they are divided, facing the vision of their cultures and on the other hand the world with western values”.
The also professor-researcher of the Center for Linguistic and Literary Studies of The College of Mexico, explains that the school years are fundamental for the child, because they are the years in which the linguistic system rearranges itself, expands and enriches it, thanks to the fact that it is in contact with the written language. This is very complex and cannot be confused with just learning letters, because behind them, there are meanings. “This was a great concern for me because all the children who had had contact with native languages by their grandparents or parents, but their entire schooling process was in Spanish, had conflict.” Being in intercultural environments and nobody encouraging interculturality is a barrier.
With that in mind, he found that many children have serious problems with writing, because their languages are tonal and Spanish is not tonal, that is, in other languages the tone also changes the meaning. This is just one example of the problems in the literacy process. This is how it was decided to present a fast, dynamic and self-managed course so that lower primary school teachers, and even parents, take it and can be a support for children.
“Literacy is a process where the child has to reflect on his own writing and reading, appropriates it and discovers that his language is lived. The child has to go through a process of meta-reflection that helps him discover that the letters are not the sounds and that by combining letters and sounds, we have the possibility of discovering the meanings”.
A Relevant Resource
A new school year begins in August, the schools will try to return to full attendance, to normality, and this is when we are going to truly realize the lag, it is feared that all these children who lost two or three years, need to strengthen various skills.
This course, open and free, is one more tool and that from four modules will allow the teacher to understand what this start of the written language is and why it is so essential not to confuse it with just pasting letters, which is a step by step written language, that there are different meanings that the child can discover, invent and relate.
“With well-planned and structured scientific work, very interesting changes can be made and give teachers confidence in their fundamental role in the process.”
The course is available through the following link: https://mexicox.gob.mx/courses/course-v1:COLMEX+LRDL22023X+2022_01/about
To learn more about the Linguistics and Education Seminar:
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