READING STORIES IN THE 5TH GRADE: AN EXPERIENCE WITH THE TRAINING OF READING SUBJECTS
Keywords: Portuguese Language Teaching; Reading Competence; Literary Genre Short Stories.
The literary work stands out as a powerful tool in the development of readers, driven by its remarkable aesthetic quality and distinctive use of language. The expressive richness and diversity present in the work play a fundamental role in enhancing critical reading skills and fostering the pleasure of reading. The mission of forming readers, often associated with the school environment, should be accomplished through immersion in these texts. Given the relevance of literary works, the present study aims, in general terms, to investigate how the Basic Sequence (BS) proposed by Cosson (2009), with a focus on the short story genre, can contribute to the development of reading competence in 5th-grade students. The specific objectives include: identifying characteristics of the motivation promoted by the application of the BS; highlighting the phase of presenting the stories to the students and its positive implications for reading; describing the reading phase of the stories, emphasizing relevant aspects demonstrated by the students in terms of text receptivity; specifying the interpretations constructed by students regarding the stories read, observing their coherence; and focusing on aspects of the BS, particularly in relation to the short stories that drive the development of reading competence. Methodologically, this is an action-research study with a qualitative approach, following the framework of the BS. The research was conducted in a municipal public school in the city of Lajes Pintadas/RN, involving a 5th-grade class of elementary school. The study is theoretically grounded in research on reading (Colomer, 2007; Solé, 1998; Antunes, 2003), the short story genre (Gotilib, 2006), and literature (Candido, 2005), as well as guidelines from the National Common Curricular Base (Brasil, 2018) and other theoretical references. The results indicate that the implementation of the BS substantially contributed to students’ engagement in reading practices, improving their performance in reading short stories and fostering the formation of future critical citizens.