Consciência fonológica de jovens adultos e idosos no PROAJA - Piauí

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the relative performance regarding phonological awareness of young, adult, and elderly individuals. In particular, the syllabic and phonemic awareness issues of the Initial Diagnostic Test of the Youth, Adult, and Elderly Literacy Program (PROAJA), implemented in the state of Piauí in the year 2021, are analyzed. The focus is on literacy in its linguistic aspect, in which phonological awareness is one of its essential aspects (SOARES, 2016). Phonological awareness is understood as a "constellation" of skills that reflect on a sound unit, which can be a syllable, an intrasyllabic segment, or a phoneme (MORAIS, 2019; FREITAS, 2004). To carry out this study, data from 5,616 PROAJA participants were evaluated. The data were collected through the Initial Diagnostic Test,

characterized as an External Assessment of literacy. To fulfill the objectives, a qualitative- descriptive analysis of 9 phonological awareness tasks from the syllabic and phonemic levels

was conducted. The studies of Soares (2016); Morais (2019); Silva (2019); Oliveira (2010); Cagliari (1997); Fontes-Martins (2016), Freitas (2004); Adams et al. (2006), among other authors, were used as a basis for the discussions. From the data analysis, it was found that young, adult, and elderly individuals showed different levels of literacy. It was observed that already literate students demonstrated greater mastery in the different phonological awareness tasks than non-literate students. It was also possible to perceive a distinction in the performance of phonemic and syllabic awareness skills, whereby, in tasks such as identifying the same initial phoneme in words, learners had greater ease than in tasks identifying the same initial syllable. Finally, it was found that linguistic aspects, such as the type of syllabic structure of words, influenced students' performance.