Efeitos de regras descritivas, presentes em histórias infantis, e de monitoramento sobre o comportamento de ler

Abstract

The present study assessed the effects of descriptive rules present in four children´s stories and the effect of monitoring on the emission and engagement time of reading behavior in eight children. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the teachers and responsible with the objective of collecting reports on the children´s performance in reading activities in school and domestic contexts, respectively. There were also interviews with the children, which had the objective of identifying their preferences among the activities worked in the Activity Choice sessions. The participants were divided in two experimental conditions. Each experimental condition was composed by three phases (Pre-test, Test and Post-Test). The Pre-Test and Post-Test phases were equivalent to four sessions of Activity Choice. The Test phase consisted to four story reading sessions interspersed with four Activity Choice sessions. The stories presented descriptive rules showing the advantages of the emission of reading behavior and the disadvantages of the non-emission of this behavior. Each Activity Choice session corresponded to the presentation of six different activities (Playing, Drawing, Painting, Cutting and Pasting, Modeling and Reading). The participants´ free choice among the activities and their engagement time were registered. The two conditions differed in the Test and Post-Test phases. In Condition I, the experimenter was absent during the Activity Choice sessions. In Condition II, the experimenter was present during the Activity Choice session. All participants, regardless of experimental condition, increased the time to engage in the activity of the Read the Pre-Test for the Test Phase and all participants remained engaged in this activity during the Post-Test. The results suggest that the continued exposure to the stories was efficient in increasing emission and engagement time of the reading behavior in children, with this behavior being supervised or not.