Proficiência em leitura de gêneros textuais do discurso matemático escolar de alunos do ensino fundamental

Abstract

The concerns that led to this research emerged from our observations as mathematics teachers, educators of mathematics teachers and within the scope of the continuing education of teachers who teach mathematics. We identified in different speeches the conviction that in mathematics, students are not good when solving problems because they cannot read. Although seductive, this view still lacks more robust scientific evidence to support it. Thus, this dissertation aimed to investigate the proficiency in reading textual genres of elementary school students' mathematical discourse. The theoretical bases that support the research are mathematics as a discourse and the text as a socio-discursive relationship that takes place through textual genres. In addition to this background, we bring authors who discuss the use of the Cloze Test to measure reading proficiency. This paper has a quantitative approach and is exploratory. The production of data was carried out with students from two public schools in the municipality of Canaã dos Carajás, located in the south of the State of Pará, being 1 city school and 1 rural school, considered for the locality, small and large, respectively. The data were produced from the application of a Cloze Test consisting of two texts of school mathematical discourse, our research instruments were applied remotely synchronously, due to the restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. The results show that most students are in the frustration level, which means that they would have difficulty reading a mathematical text without the interference of a teacher. Regarding the fluency in the use of words, we identified that the students had more correct answers in the words belonging to the group of names (high semantic load) than the connectives (low semantic load). We concluded according to the results of the research that more than 90% of the participating students do not have mastery in reading or are able to carry out self-criticism, and these students arrived at high school with reading difficulties and implies low or almost no appropriation of school mathematical discourse.