[pt] Este trabalho tem por objetivo investigar as demandas de processamento relacionadas à resolução de provas de língua portuguesa do SAERJinho, focalizando-se, em particular, fatores de ordem linguístico-textual envolvidos na leitura de textos e enunciados das referidas provas. Na resenha da literatura são apresentadas vertentes teóricas sobre o processamento da leitura, seus aspectos cognitivos, metacognitivos assim como os conceitos de legibilidade e inteligibilidade. Dada a multiplicidade semiótica que caracteriza os textos das provas analisadas, são considerados os conceitos de multimodalidade e multiletramento. Apresenta-se, adicionalmente, literatura relativa a gêneros textuais, tendo em vista a identificação dos gêneros mais recorrentes nas provas examinadas. Uma breve caracterização dos tipos de questão de múltipla escolha usados em provas objetivas também é estabelecida, entendendo-se que aspectos metacognitivos associados à resolução desses tipos de questão podem afetar o desempenho dos alunos nas provas. A fim de compreender os critérios de elaboração das provas, foram considerados os Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais para o Ensino Médio, que são a base referencial da Matriz de Referência utilizada na elaboração do SAERJinho. Antes das análises, o SAERJinho foi apresentado. No capítulo da metodologia, são apresentados o corpus da pesquisa, a ferramenta usada para verificar o grau de legibilidade dos textos (Coh-Metrix-Port) e o valor do índice Flesch associado a cada texto. Em seguida, procedeu-se à análise dos gêneros textuais, dos tipos de questão de múltipla escolha e também das habilidades e dos conteúdos específicos cobrados nas questões. Os resultados da pesquisa sinalizaram para a necessidade de se reavaliarem os critérios de elaboração das provas e apontaram ainda para a necessidade urgente de os alunos do Ensino Médio desenvolverem as habilidades necessárias para alcançarem proficiência em leitura (como por exemplo, inferir uma informação implícita em um texto, identificar o tema de um texto, identificar a finalidade de textos de diferentes gêneros) e, consequentemente, terem bom êxito nas avaliações. / [en] This thesis is aimed at investigating the processing demands related to taking the SAERJinho s Portuguese Language Tests (the Education Evaluation System of the State of Rio de Janeiro), by focusing, in particular, on textual-linguistic factors involved in reading the statements of the mentioned tests. In the literature review, we present the theoretical framework for reading processing, its cognitive and metacognitive aspects, as well as the concepts of readability and intelligibility. Due to the semiotic multiplicity that characterizes the texts of the tests analyzed, the concepts of multi-modality and multi-literacy are considered. Additionally, we present the literature regarding text genres, focusing on the identification of the most recurrent genres in the tests examined. A brief characterization of the types of multiple choice questions used in objective tests is also established, bearing in mind that metacognitive aspects associated with the resolution of these types of question may affect students performance on the tests. In order to understand the criteria involved in test preparation, we consider the Brazilian National Curriculum Parameters for the Secondary Education, which are the reference basis of the Reference Matrix used in the preparation of the SAERJinho. Before showing the analyses, the SAERJinho is introduced. In the methodology chapter, the research corpus is shown, as well as the tool used to verify the readability level of the texts (Coh-Metrix-Port) and the Flesch reading score associated with each text. Then, we analyze the text genres, the types of multiple choice questions and also the skills and the specific topics covered in the questions. Research results show that it is necessary to re-evaluate the criteria involved in the elaboration of the tests and they also point out that high school students should urgently develop their reading proficiency (such as, for example, inferring implicit information in a text, identifying the text s topic and the purpose of texts of different genres) and, consequently, achieve good results in the evaluations.

[pt] No âmbito das pesquisas sobre escolas eficazes, este estudo investiga especialmente o efeito-professor no aprendizado de leitura de estudantes do segundo e do terceiro anos do Ensino Fundamental. Interessa averiguar quais práticas estão associadas ao aumento do aprendizado das diferentes habilidades que necessitam ser construídas durante o processo de aprendizagem da nossa língua e, ainda, se os impactos dessas práticas se diferenciam conforme o ano escolar frequentado pelos alunos. Os dados analisados são originários do Estudo Longitudinal da Geração Escolar 2005 - GERES 2005. A subamostra utiliza dados cognitivos de 17.628 alunos, distribuídos em 671 turmas, de 225 escolas, pertencentes às redes municipal, estadual, federal e privada, das cidades do Rio de Janeiro (RJ), de Belo Horizonte (MG), de Campinas (SP) e de Campo Grande (MS). Quantos aos dados contextuais, a subamostra corresponde aos professores das respectivas turmas. O trabalho pode ser resumido em três investigações complementares. A primeira corresponde à interpretação pedagógica da escala de proficiência, indispensável para a compreensão de qualquer resultado posterior, já que os valores numéricos das escalas não têm significado em si mesmos. Sendo assim, os itens dos testes foram examinados detalhadamente, conforme a sua distribuição nos intervalos de proficiência da escala, com o objetivo de esclarecer sobre o que os alunos são capazes de realizar cognitivamente em cada um deles. Em seguida, foi realizada nova análise pedagógica, de forma a atribuir coerência ao conjunto de habilidades, interpretando-o quanto aos diferentes níveis de aprendizagem. A segunda investigação busca evidências da existência de subescalas de habilidades internas ao aprendizado de leitura. Simultaneamente, investiga se as práticas declaradas pelos professores também podem ser expressas por meio de escalas. Os construtos foram definidos, inicialmente, por análise conceitual e, logo após, foram submetidos aos procedimentos estatísticos necessários à sua validação. Por fim, a terceira investigação, objetivo central desta tese, examina o efeito das práticas de leitura no aprendizado dos estudantes avaliados durante a pesquisa. A metodologia utilizada para tal associação foi a Modelagem Hierárquica Multinível (nível aluno e nível turma), apropriada para pesquisas que utilizam dados alinhados hierarquicamente, como é o caso das pesquisas educacionais. Os resultados evidenciaram boas medidas para as escalas de práticas de leitura. As escalas obtidas foram: (i) leitura realizada pelo professor para os alunos, (ii) solicitação do professor para que os alunos realizem leitura silenciosa e (iii) solicitação do professor para que os alunos realizem leitura em voz alta. Embora com resultados menos expressivos estatisticamente, as escalas formadas para as habilidades em leitura foram as seguintes: (i) processamento do código de leitura; (ii) localização de informações explícitas; (iii) integração de informações entre o texto e o contexto e (iv) apreensão de aspectos discursivos do texto. A associação entre práticas de leitura e proficiência mostrou ganhos diferenciados por parte dos alunos, conforme a habilidade, o ano escolar e as práticas adotadas pelos professores. Alguns resultados: (i) a ênfase no uso de métodos tradicionais apresentou correlação negativa com o aprendizado das habilidades de processamento do código e de localização de informações no 2º ano; (ii) no 3º ano, a prioridade em atividades de cópia, ditado e caligrafia apresentou correlação negativa com o aprendizado dos alunos em todas as habilidades investigadas (iii) e a leitura realizada pelo professor, no 3° ano, foi a única modalidade de prática de leitura que se manteve significativa e com potencial para agregar conhecimento aos alunos, também em todas as habilidades pesquisadas. / [en] In the area of researches about effective schools, this study investigates specially the teacher effect in the learning of reading by students of the second and third grades of elementary school. Our interest is to investigate which practices are related to the increase of learning of the different skills that need to be constructed during the learning of a native language, and also to check if the impacts of these practices are different in each grade of elementary school. The analyzed data were collected in a longitudinal project called GERES – Estudo Longitudinal da Geração Escolar 2005. The subsample uses cognitive data of 17,628 students, distributed in 671 groups of 225 schools. The research took place in county, state, federal, and private schools of the following cities: Rio de Janeiro (RJ), Belo Horizonte (MG), Campinas (SP), and Campo Grande (MS). The contextual data of the subsample correspond to information provided by the teachers of those groups. This study may be condensed in three complementary investigations. The first one corresponds to the pedagogical interpretation of the proficiency scale, which is mandatory to the comprehension of any posterior result, considering that the numerical values of the sample do not have intrinsic meaning. Therefore, tests items were examined in detail, according to their distribution in the scale’s proficiency ranges, in order to make clear what the students are able to do in each item. After this, a new pedagogical analysis was done with the intention of making the group of skills coherent, interpreting their different learning levels. In the second investigation, we search for evidences of the existence of subscales of skills that are internally related to the learning of reading. At the same time, we investigate if the practices declared by the teachers may also be expressed by scales. The constructs were initially defined by conceptual analysis and later by statistic procedures, which were necessary for their authentication. Finally, in the third investigation, which was the main objective of this study, we examine the effect of Portuguese language practices on the learning of the students who were evaluated along the research. The methodology we used for this association was based on the Hierarchical Multilevel Models (student and teacher levels). This methodology is ideal for researches based on hierarchically aligned data, what happens to educational research. The results of the research reveal good measures for the reading practices scales. The scales obtained were: (i) teacher reads for the students, (ii) teacher asks the students to read in silence, and (iii) teacher asks the students to read aloud. Although the results were not so statistically expressive, the scales we obtained for the reading skills were: (i) reading code processing; (ii) localizing explicit information; (iii) integrating text and context; and (iv) taking up discursive aspects from the text. The association between Portuguese language practices and proficiency has showed different achievements by the students. It varied mainly according to the skill, the school grade, and the teachers’ practices. Some of the results are that: (i) emphasizing traditional methods showed a negative relation with the learning of reading code processing and localizing explicit information in the second grade; (ii) in the third grade, highlighting copy, dictation, and calligraphy showed a negative relation to students’ learning in all the researched skills; and (iii) it was also observed that when the teacher reads for the students, in the third grade, it aggregates relevant knowledge to the students in all the researched skills, being this practice the only one that maintained significance in the research.

This study focused on the relationship between reading comprehension and academic achievement of grade 10 learners in the learning area Language and attempted to address the following primary research question: What is the relationship between the reading comprehension of grade 10 learners in their first and second language and their academic achievement in the learning area Language ? The researcher also addressed the following secondary questions: Is them a significant difference between Afrikaans and Sesotho-speaking learners regarding their achievements in reading comprehension (first and second language) and the learning area Language (first and second language)? Is there a significant difference between male and female learners regarding their achievements in reading comprehension (first and second language) and the learning area Language (first and second language) ? A total of seventy-seven (77) grade 10 learners for whom English is a second language were included in this study. The learners' reading comprehension abilities in the first language (Afrikaans and Sesotho) and the second language (English) were tested and correlated with their achievements in the learning area Language (first and second language). The reading comprehension and language achievements of Afrikaans and Sesotho-speaking learners respectively and male and female learners were compared. Resulting from the findings of this study, the following conclusions were made: A significant relationship exists between the reading comprehension of grade 10 learners in their first and second language and their academic achievement in the learning area Language. There is a significant difference between Afrikaans and Sesotho-speaking learners regarding their achievements in reading comprehension (first and second language) and the learning area Language (first and second language). There is a significant difference between male and female learners regarding their achievements in reading comprehension (first and second language) and the learning area Language (first and second language). / Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Our research follows up longitudinal study of doc. PhDr. Gabriela Seidlová Málková, Ph.D. on Faculty of humanities, Charles University. In the years 2010-2012 four subsequent research of 127 preschool children age 3,5 - 5,5 years took place. In 2017 we succeeded in searching for 40 children attending at that time 5th class in elementary school. We captured current abilities of that children, especially reading. Our interest was to investigate decoding and reading comprehension. In agreement with previous research results we found out, that reading comprehension relates statistically significantly to decoding skill, listening comprehension, vocabulary, language awareness and nonverbal intelligence (all in elementary school). Based on the tests in nursery school, we divided children to three groups, and we described two outer - more (Comparative group) and less (Deficit group) language equipped. We traced reading profiles of these two groups in elementary school (5th grade). Keywords: language skills, reading literacy, reading comprehension, reading abilities, diagnostics of reading, development of reading skills, decoding

PhD (English) / Department of English / It has been established, through research, that some first-entering science students display levels of under-preparedness for tertiary studies. One area in which this is seen is in students’ lack of academic reading ability. Although, some of these students read fluently they do not display competencies in other reading areas, such as to understand, interpret, infer or critique ideas expressed in science academic texts. This low academic reading proficiency has a negative effect on their studies. The aim of this study was to identify, through the National Benchmarking Tests (NBT), the reading competencies of all (100) students registered in the Science Foundation Programme (SFP) in the University of Venda. SFP caters for students who did not attain the required scores in Mathematics and Physical Science. These students’ overall scoring, including English competency, is less than the required (26) points, even though they obtained university entrance scores in their Matric Examination. A NBT was used to identify students’ reading competencies and based on these results, a reading profile of the students was drawn up and was used to design an intervention strategy to enhance existing competencies and to remedy any shortcomings. To achieve the study’s aim, a mixedmethod approach was used. The method was predominantly quantitative, because of the statistical aspects of the data from NBT, however, it had some elements of qualitative approach through the use of a case study and the designing of an intervention strategy in response to the profile. The results of the study indicated that the majority of students performed at the basic and lower-intermediate levels. This kind of reading profile means that students on SFP do not possess the academic reading skills needed for them to succeed with their required academic reading activities, without some kind of structured intervention. The design of such a tool (appendix 5) forms the second part of this study