Experimento pedagógico de intervenção na educação infantil: o desenvolvimento das bases psíquicas da linguagem escrita

Abstract

This study investigated the development of specific higher mental functions related to written language in early childhood education. Grounded in the Historical-Cultural Theory (HCT), it was based on the assumption that the cultural development of 5-year-old children in an institutional setting should be grounded in mediating activities organized around their primary activity, namely, social role-playing games. The prevalence and diversity of methodological approaches at this educational stage—including those influenced by cognitive neuroscience— do not always allow teachers to identify children’s cultural development needs or to systematize intentional pedagogical interventions. In light of this, we formulated the following research question: How do mediating activities, organized through a Pedagogical Intervention Experiment (EPI), enable the identification and promotion of the development of the special higher mental functions that constitute the psychological foundations of written language in early childhood education? Based on this question, the objectives of this study were: a) to analyze, through the EPI, the development of voluntary attention, concept formation, and creative imagination in 5-year-old children; and b) to discuss how mediating activities, systematically integrated with social role-playing games, make observable the signs of development that constitute the psychological foundations of written language. Grounded in Dialectical Historical Materialism and Microgenetic Analysis, the research included a characterization of the institution, observations, a pilot study, individual diagnostic assessments, pre- and post-session evaluations, and the planning and implementation of interventions. The results showed that the psychological foundations of written language can be identified in children’s collective activities through systematic observation, collaboration between the researcher and the teacher, and the intentional organization of mediating activities linked to social role-playing and complex symbolic systems. The observations made it possible to identify spontaneous generalizations about writing in non-directive contexts, needs related to the development of voluntary attention in more directive situations, and manifestations of creative imagination in free play. In social role-playing games, writing became a functional part of the activity, taking on roles of recording and interpretation linked to the roles being played. These results indicate that the interplay between social role-playing games and different symbolic systems creates conditions for the development of FPSE related to the future acquisition of written language. The EPI’s research trajectory has thus demonstrated the possibility of investigating child development in motion, within the social relationships in which children play, speak, construct concepts, imagine, negotiate meanings, assume social roles, and use signs as auxiliary tools for their activities.