Literacy practices in the process of acquisition of the written Portuguese language by deaf people in the early grades of elementary school

Abstract

This article is the result of a postdoctoral research that aimed to analyze the literacy practices used by teachers of regular bilingual classrooms for deaf people who are in the process of acquiring the written Portuguese language. In Brazil, there are still few studies that show literacy practices with deaf students, which justifies the importance of carrying out this study. The research was carried out in three municipal schools in the city of Recife, Pernambuco, in early elementary school years, which offer these classes. Five bilingual teachers participated in this study. The theoretical contribution consisted of authors who work with the theme of literacy of deaf people from a bilingual perspective, highlighting: Fernandes, Quadros, Schmiedt, and Sousa. The qualitative research happened in two stages: semi-structured interviews with the volunteers and classroom observations. All contact with the participants was made remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic, using digital media resources, such as Whatsapp, email, and Google Meet. In addition to the profile of the participating teachers, the data showed what they think about the acquisition process of the written Portuguese language by deaf people, as well as the literacy practices used by them in this process. Among these practices, we highlight the use of Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) as an instruction to work on the reading of the world and the manual alphabet as an appropriation facilitator of the written Portuguese language.