It is not fortuitous that educational systems channel their best efforts and resources towards the universal teaching of reading and writing, as these skills are crucial in modern societies. Nonetheless, some children experience difficulties in learning to read from a very early age. One of the main goals of the AaZ — Ler Melhor, Saber Mais program is to reduce such challenges during the first years of schooling, when such intervention is most likely to succeed.
This program is aimed at first- and second-year primary school students in Portugal (aged between 5 and 8 years old) who face difficulties in learning how to read and write.
Base assumptions of the project
The program is built on the following assumptions:
- Reading is a social activity, not a natural process. It is a complex skill that requires the mastery of several other competences. For an overwhelming majority of people, this social activity of paramount importance relies on another crucial social pursuit: education.
- The fact that some children find it easier to learn how to read while other children find it more challenging is commonplace in any classroom. Difficulties in acquiring reading skills are normal and expected, albeit undesirable, and should be tackled in any regular education plan, rather than integrated in a special education programme. Teaching how to read is, without a doubt, the most challenging aspect of education. It generally requires an individualised and intensive intervention which, in some cases, can last for several years. Hence, and as it requires a different approach, this type of intervention cannot take place in the classroom.
- Some skills are necessary (although insufficient on their own) in order to learn almost all of the other skills. Such is the case of reading and writing.
- The gap between students who have difficulties, and their peers tends to increase over time. Therefore, the earlier the intervention, the more likely it is to succeed.
- Experiencing learning difficulties in the early years of schooling greatly undermines students' motivation, as well as their willingness to commit. Their initial self-confidence and enthusiasm tend to dissipate and to be replaced by a feeling of incompetence and a negative perception of learning and school.
Goals
This project seeks to tackle and overcome inconsistencies in the initial learning of reading and writing, avoiding pupil discouragement and a progressive disparity between the students in the program and their peers.
By the end of the programme, participating students are expected to be able to read/write at a level that matches the average proficiency level of their group/class.
These students are also expected to exponentially increase their reading proficiency, their confidence in their reading and writing skills as well as their self-motivation to read.
Target audience
The project is aimed at first- and second-year primary school students in Portugal (aged between 5 and 8 years old) who face difficulties in learning how to read and write.
The choice of the target group is based on the belief that the chances of overcoming difficulties is correlated to how early such difficulties are detected. Considering the cumulative nature of the learning process and any preceding learning deficits, chances tend to decline rapidly and drastically between the first and the fourth school year, which correspond to the age bracket between 5 and 10 years old in Portugal.
Methodology
The first step of the program is to identify the areas that need improvement. When it comes to reading, it is vital to first analyse how students read/write letters, syllables, words and text. This specific evaluation is fundamental to gauge each student's proficiency level in each skill before the intervention begins. This baseline will give us the extent of the difficulties experienced by the pupils, allowing us to focus the intervention on the most problematic areas, where the greatest deficits are. Having a baseline can also help predict the programme's probability of success and create a threshold to measure future reading/writing skills acquisition.
The second step will establish an individual support structure, according to which each student will have a minimum of three and a maximum of five sessions per week with a professor/tutor. Ideally, these sessions will be conducted on a one-to-one basis, and will last between 30 and 45 minutes. Each tutor will never have more than three students.
Finally, following the third step of the programme, students will be re-evaluated every three weeks. The students' entire class will also complete three assessments throughout the year: one at the beginning of the school year, one in January, and one at the end of the school year. The progress of the students will be tracked through a combination of these assessments, by comparing individual results with their own baseline and with the average of their group/class.
School Year 2023/2024
AaZ, a program geared towards developing initial reading skills of children who reveal extreme learning difficulties started in September/October 2019 and was officially established in 2020 after the official agreements were signed.
This program is coordinated by professor João Lopes and a small team based in his research centre at Universidade do Minho.
In the 2023/2024 school year, the program has provided direct assistance to 492 pupils across its five implementation regions.
| Azores | Alentejo | Gondomar | Lisbon | Madeira | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tutors | 23 | 2 | 7 | 7 | 4 |
| 1st Graders | 87 | 8 | 18 | 45 | 32 |
| 2nd Graders | 164 | 18 | 40 | 48 | 32 |
As in previous school years, the program team has produced a set of support materials for teacher-tutors, which were also made available to all teachers and interested parties on the Iniciativa Educação website.
In 2023/2024, 15 articles were written and published online to disseminate the most relevant scientific research about the teaching of reading and writing. The total number of articles available online is now 60.
This highlights the program's important scientific dissemination activity, with the production of a large number of texts relevant to the teaching and learning of reading and writing.