la realidad de la adquisición del lenguaje oral y escrito en una muestra de escuelas del sector sur de santiago

This work presents the results of a study done with children who attended first grade in a municipal school belonging to a deprived socio-cultural level in Santiago, Chile. The group was composed by children of both sexes with an average age of six years and eight months. The children were assessed in the areas of reading and writing at the beginning and at the end of the study. The results show that this group had low achievement in reading and writing. At the beginning the children did not show the adequate linguistic development of the competence needed to successfully meet the process of reading and writing. At the end the children did not acquire these psycholinguistic abilities which would permit them to manage the reading and writing processes. This study showed dissociation between what was observed in the practice and the discourse of the teacher. In this respect, we conclude that it is necessary that teachers deepen and update their information as a way to significantly improve their teaching practice.