Introduction

Relevance of the Theme

Reading is the foundation of all learning and the gateway to imagination. It is not just a skill, but an indispensable tool for life. Through reading, we explore worlds, unravel mysteries, learn new concepts, and connect with people from different cultures and eras. Understanding what is read is the key to making the most of this tool. In this discipline, which aims to expand students' communicative competence and worldview, reading and comprehension are fundamental pillars.

Contextualization

Within the broad spectrum of the study of the Portuguese language, reading and comprehension constitute the foundation upon which the other skills rest: writing, speaking, and grammatical understanding. By the 7th year of Elementary School, students should have already acquired the initial reading skills, such as decoding words and understanding simpler texts. At this stage, we will deepen the analysis and interpretation of texts, both literary and informative.

This theme offers a fundamental transition in the teaching of the Portuguese language from the simplest level of reading to the most advanced level, where the skill of comprehension becomes more sophisticated and crucial. Through practical exercises, text analysis, and specialized tips, this Lesson Note will help students improve their reading and comprehension, strengthening their study and learning skills.

Theoretical Development

Components

• Reading: a deciphering act: Unraveling the enigmas of printed words, reading is an act of decoding and recognizing symbols and sounds. It begins with letter recognition, advances to sound comprehension, and culminates in the ability to associate words, phrases, and paragraphs with meanings.

• Textual comprehension: the essential link: Textual comprehension goes beyond decoding. It means understanding what is written, making connections of ideas, and recognizing the author's intentions. It is the ability to interpret and absorb the text critically and consciously.

Key Terms

• Decoding: A cognitive process that allows the reader to associate sounds (phonemes) with letters (graphemes) and, from that, identify words.

• Comprehension: The act or effect of understanding, perceiving the meaning of something.

Examples and Cases

• The Decoding Process: In the early stages of learning, a child associates the sound with the grapheme, meaning, they correlate the sound /a/ with the letter 'A'. Gradually, they begin to understand that, in fact, the sound /a/ can be represented by different graphemes, for example, a, á, à, ã, ao. This is the decoding process, which aims to allow the reader to correctly interpret the text.

• Comprehension in Practice: Given a text about ecosystems, comprehension can be demonstrated by students in their ability to explain the concepts of ecosystem, biodiversity, and environmental imbalance presented in the text, as well as relate these concepts to real examples in the natural world.

• Critical Comprehension: In a text of political opinion, the student should be able to identify the author's statements, analyze the evidence presented, and develop their own position, even if contrary to the author's. This demonstrates an advanced level of textual comprehension.

Detailed Summary

Relevant Points

• Reading as Deciphering: The reading process, which begins with letter recognition and advances to sound and word comprehension, is an act of deciphering that leads to understanding the text.

• Textual Comprehension: This is the crucial stage of reading, where the reader understands what they are reading, relates ideas, and identifies the author's intentions. It is the ability to understand beyond words, delving into the meaning of the text.

• Decoding and Comprehension working together: Decoding and comprehension are interdependent processes that combine to provide effective reading. Decoding is the basis for comprehension, but comprehension also influences decoding, as the ability to understand the context helps in interpreting unknown words.

Conclusions

• Importance of Comprehension: Reading without comprehension is just decoding, without giving life to the words. Comprehension is what gives meaning to reading, allowing the reader to engage more deeply and critically with the text.

• Comprehension as a Learned Skill: Comprehension is not an innate skill, but one that can be developed and improved through practice and training.

Exercises

1. Decoding Exercise: Given a text with excerpts in English, ask students to identify the words that were 'translated' into Portuguese using the same decoding logic they would use to read a word in the Portuguese language.

2. Direct Comprehension Exercise: Given a short text, ask students to identify the main characters, settings, and events of the text. This activity aims to train the skill of direct comprehension, that is, the ability to understand what is literally written in the text.

3. Inferential Comprehension Exercise: Given a paragraph that contains some implicit information, ask students to identify this information. For example, 'João bought an umbrella. What can be inferred about the weather?'. This activity aims to train the skill of inferential comprehension, that is, the ability to understand information that is not explicitly provided in the text.