Correlação entre o nível de leitura de alunos do 9º ano do ensino fundamental e o rendimento global

Abstract

This master’s dissertation aimed to investigate the existence of relationship between schooling performance of students of the 9th grade of Elementary School and the reading level of those students. To do so, a study was carried out with 191 students of the 9th grade of Elementary School, aged from thirteen to fifteen years, enrolled in public schools, in Fortaleza, in the state of Ceará, Who answered a socioeconomic questionnaire and a test consistuted of some questions extracted from Permanent System of Assessment and Brazil’s test of the state of Ceará.It is a descriptive and quantitative study whose results showed that the skills most developed by students of the 9th grade are: to infer the meaning of a word or expression in a text , to identify the theme, to distinguish a fact from the opinion concerning this fact and to recognize the effect of meaning arising from a particular word or expression. Difficulties were identified in the questions that required: to identify the thesis of a text, to establish relationships between the thesis and the arguments offered to support it, to establish a relation of cause and consequence between the parts of a text and to identify effects of irony and humor in varied texts. When analyzing the level of reading proficiency, it was observed that the majority of students (61.8%) had a proficiency level lower than six. Pearson\\\\\\\'s correlation between the number of test scores and the students\\\\\\\' schooling performance, related to the 8th grade, in the subjects of mathematics, science, history and geography, showed a positive and significant relationship between the level of reading proficiency and the global average. Significant relationships between reading proficiency and performance in mathematics, geography, history and science were also found. Correspondence analysis revealed some findings, among them: the association between the ability to infer information implicit in a text and the schooling performance above the average (greater than six) or the average (equal to six); Association between the high level of reader proficiency and the abilities to differentiate the main parts of the secondary ones from a text and to identify the generating conflict of the plot and the elements that construct the narrative; Relationship between the above-average level of reading proficiency and the correct answers in questions that require recognition of the effect of sense resulting from the use of punctuation and other notations and identification of irony or humor effects in varied texts; And the association between the low level of reading proficiency and the difficulties in recognizing the effect of meaning resulting from the choice of a particular word or expression.The results reinforce the argument that reading competence is an instrument for learning the disciplines of the school curriculum. It should be emphasized that the results found refer only to the study sample and can not be generalized, however, they signal and strengthen the idea that students with better reading comprehension also present a more satisfactory performance in the disciplines of the school curriculum.