Jacques Fijalkow

La Copie de Texte comme Indicateur de l’Apprentissage de la Langue Ecrite par l’Enfant

RésuméDans un échantillon de 34 enfants de lère année d’école primaire, on a observé le comportement de copie d’un texte — modalités de découpage, manifestations vocales et production écrit — en vue de disposer d’une tâche permettant de suivre les progrés de l’enfant pendant les deux premières années d’école obligatoire. L’analyse fait apparaître, quatre niveaux successifs. Au premier niveau, celui de la construction des unités de l’écrit, le titre, la ligne, les blancs et les lettres posent à l’enfant des problèmes particuliers. Le texte est alors pour l’enfant un objet quelconque. Au niveau littéral qui vient ensuite l’enfant copie systématiquement lettre à lettre. Des activités de dénomination de lettres apparaissent. Le texte est, pour l’enfant, une suite de lettres. Au troisième niveau l’enfant s’efforce de copier des groupes de lettres identifiables visuellement et/ou phoniquement: phonèmes, syllabes, ou suites non syllabiques prononçables. L’appui sur l’oral est souvent implicite. Le texte est considéré par l’enfant comme ayant une valeur de représentation de l’oral. Au quatrième niveau c’est le mot qui constitue l’unité de référence. Un sous-groupe de sujets à empan large parvient à copier le texte mot à mot, alors que le sous-groupe à empan étroit doit s’y reprendre à deux reprises. La syllabe prend alors valeur d’unité d’appui. L’oral est omniprésent. le texte est, pour l’enfant, une suite de mots.AbstractThe behavior of 34 first-grade children was observed when copying a text — their procedures for dividing the text verbal behavior and written production — in order to obtain task with which to follow the child’s progress through the first two years of schooling. Four successive levels appear after analysis of these data. On the first level, the construction of written units, the child faces particular problems with the title, lines, blanks and letters. The text is merely a commonplace object for the child. The second, or literal, level involves systematic letter-by-letter copying; letter naming appears. The text becomes a sequence of letters. On the third level, the child strives to copy visually and/or phonetically identifiable groups of letters: phonemes, syllables, or pronounceable non-syllabic strings of letters. Oral support is often implicit. The text is not seen by the child as a representation of speech. The word constitutes the unit of reference on the fourth level. The wide span group succeeds in copying the text word-by-word, while the narrow-span subgroup needs to repeat the trial twice, using the syllable as the support unit. Oral behavior is omnipresent. The text has become a sequence of words for the child.

Learning to use inner speech for improving reading and writing of poor readers

Two experiments were conducted to see if teaching poor readers to use inner speech could improve their reading and writing. In the first experiment, there were 8 third grade children, 4 in the experimental group and 4 in the control one, matched from a pre-test of reading. In the experimental group, the children were trained to use inner speech in 27 tasks, from explicit self-speech of the adult and of the child to implicit self-speech by the child alone. The results show significant differences between the two groups in the post-test of reading. In the second experiment, there were 6 students in second grade, 3 in the experimental group and 3 in the control one. In the experimental group, the children were trained to use inner speech in 18 tasks: 6 cognitive tasks that do not require short term memory as in the first experiment, 6 reading tasks, 6 writing tasks. In the experimental group, the children were trained to use self-speech to process the tasks whereas, in the control group, the adult’s help was mostly visual. The results were that the experimental group succeeded significantly better in the post-tests of reading and writing.