C ASE 5

CASE C – CP

Reading ability About C’s reading ability

C belongs to those who craft and elaborate their work pieces. According to her teach-er, she insisted a lot on the perfection of her work, however often demand more time to accomplish (also to ponder over) what she started. In our interview, she was asked to read a new poem the moment she saw it. Obviously she seemed a little bit panic, hesitated several times on the less familiar words, such as ruisselle, ailleurs, read carefully and slowly but still well finished the whole reading. In the end, she told me « j’arrive à tous lire mais il y a des mots que j’ai pas très bien compris » (I can read them all but there are some words that I didn’t quite understand). From her words, we could tell that she is actually confident of her reading ability. See the dialogue below, which confirms what we supposed.

- D : Qu’est-ce qui est le plus dur pour toi dans la lecture ?

- C : Lire des mots très durs, par exemple dinosaure, je ne savais pas trop à lire - D : Maintenant tu arrives ?

- C : Oui, avant je n’arrivais pas trop trop mais maintenant ça va.

- D : Comment tu arrives à lire ça ?

- C : Parce que j’entends que d, i, ça fait /di/ ; n, o ça fait /nɔ/ ; s, a, u ça fait /zɔ/. Donc ça fait / dinɔzɔr /.

- D : Et d’autres choses plus dures ? - C : Non, ça va.

Among all the reading activities, she prefers writing as she told me clearly that « j’adore écriture »(I like writing). Then she believed that her reading difficulty lies in reading the complicated words. However, this difficulty could be conquered by her continuous efforts.

To better explain, she picked up an example of pronouncing the word dinosaure. There she decomposed every syllable of the word to call back the whole process of deciphering. Ex-cept for this difficulty, it seems that she is at ease in reading. Later we noticed another ele-ment of reading that she highlights a lot during the interview, that is the memorization.

- D : Est-ce que c’est facile pour toi pour prendre le poème par coeur ? - C : Oui.

- D : T’as besoin de répéter plusieur fois ?

- C : Une fois je suis rentrée à la maison, j’ai dit à ma maman que j’ai un poème à lire, mais en fait j’ai déjà répété beaucoup de fois.

It seems that memorization is not hard for her and she also needs memorization to facilitate reading process. Later we would find more evidences. See another dialogue below when I asked her whether poetry could contribute to reading. She offered me a similar sce-ne when she read the poem to her mom. She said that the poem has been practiced many times in school so that she could literally recite as she read. We are concerned that she, to some extent, may confuse recitation (speak from memory) with reading. If not, we are al-most sure that memorization occupies an essential role in her reading.

- D : Est-ce que tu penses que la poésie, ça va t’aider à lire ?

- C : Oui, en fait des fois le maître nous donne un poème pour lire à la maison à lire qu’on a déjà révisé plein de fois et en fait maman…je lui dis j’ai un poème à lire, je prend mon cahier sans mon cahier, je lis ça dans deux minuites. Ça veut dire que ça aide à lire.

Finally, we intended to see how she comments on the role and the utility of reading at her age in school, her response remains either ignorant or rather academic. Although she

started literacy learning very early (around five and a half years old), she didn’t quite grasp why she should do so. According to her, the first year of reading in CP would directly de-vote to that in CE1. No further extension.

- D : Tu sais pourquoi tu apprends à lire à 6 ans et demi ? - C : Non. J’ai appris à lire à cinq ans et demi.

- D : Ah, du coup tu sais pourquoi ? - C : Je ne sais pas trop

…

- D : Tu sais à quoi ça sert à lire au CP ?

- C : Pour passer au CE1. Je pense que ce sera trop dur au CE2.

To resume, C is a good reader who is quite involved in her own work of learning, and she is particularly fond of writing. She pays no attention to the finality of reading. From her remarks, we know that she is confident of her reading ability. However, enough time to react in reading seems extremely crucial for her; we suppose that could possibly explain why she invests a lot in memorization (of many poems). We believe that this move could serve as a source of confidence for her in reading, therefore merits our special attention.

The potentiality of poetry

About poetry itself

Not surprisingly, when she was confronted with the question: what poetry is to her, she once again related it to the memorization claiming that poetry is to learn and to re-member certain things. If we could recall the importance that she attached to memoriza-tion, it would be understandable that she adopts poem as its carrier. We would know more about the choice later in our analysis.

- D : Qu’est-ce que c’est, une poésie, pour toi ? - C : C’est pour apprendre, retenir des choses.

Moreover, she also provided certain information about poetry during her identifica-tion of the given text : she made her judgement mostly depending on the acoustic aspect

of poetry, i.e. poetry diction. As she told, she figured out that story diction is distinguished from that of poetry. To be more detailed, the former flows faster while the latter remains slow. This deciding factor of opposition between the two dictions helps her identify the poetry successfully.

- D : Regarde ce text, est-ce que c’est un poème ? - C : Oui

- D : Pourquoi ?

- C : Parce qu’on le dit très lentement, et parce que on ne le lit pas de la manière d’histoire.

- D : La manière d’histoire est comment ?

- C : Ça veut dire que ça, on lit plus lentement et les autres on lit plus rapide.

She also told me how they learnt poetry in class: reading poetry for many times cor-respond to what her teacher operated as poetry diction in class. Children are invited to read the poem in group or in person, whispering or aloud etc. The purpose is to take it as the drill for sounds (including rhymes in some cases), rhythms, and the pronunciation of words (to increase relevant phonological awareness)… And during this process, children often obtain its by-product: the memorization of poem. Teachers should always be aware that the cart would never be put before the horse. Afterwards, she mentioned another device of poetry learning : the notebook to write down or to copy the poem on the blackboard. It not only serves as a consolidation of knowledge but also as a reserve for further creation (of new poems). Moreover, the collection of poems on the table at the back is accessible to all pupils. The activities, the devices and the collections create a preliminary circle for poetry learning, a rudiment of ecopoetry from which pupils could gradually nourish their poetry learning.

- D : Comment apprends-tu la poésie dans la classe ?

- C : Une poésie aux tableaux, et on va lire plusieurs fois, on a des petits carnets pour écrire (reco-pier)…

…

- D : Où peux-tu trouver la poésie dans la classe ? - C : Aux tables au fond.

- D : Vous avez le cahier de poésie ? - C : Oui.

Poetry and self

According to the dialogue below, C’s construction of ecopoetry seemed not confined to school. She voluntarily embraced poetry at home together with her parents, as her mother was evidently fond of poetry as well. Here we see that poetry jumping out of the classroom and appeared in our interview as a family habit, a taste of life.

- D : Est-ce que tu lis les poems à la maison ? - C : Oui.

- D : Du coup tu peux trouver le poème à la maison aussi ?

- C : Oui, j’en ai une, j’ai des poèmes à la maison. Ma maman m’achète trois livres sur le poème.

In addition, she and her parents often read poems to each other, which is rather rare in our cases. More importantly, this poetry reading was then turned into a bonding activity in her family, which brings up pleasure for both her and her parents. For C, she may conse-quently develop a supplementary connotation of poetry when she decided to present poem on the mother’s day and on the father’s day. From the interview, we realize that poetry oc-cupies a significant role in her family: a linkage through which all three of them could share the harmony and happiness with each other. This exclusive manner of communication would definitely contribute to her construction of ecopoetry at home. Poetry, under this circumstance, bridges her family and school into a harmonious reunion.

- D : C’est toi qui lis ou bien c’est tes parents qui lisent ? - C : Des fois c’est un peu les deux.

- D : Alors du coup tu lis à tes parents aussi ? - C : Oui, ils sont très contents.

- D : Pourquoi tu leur lis un poem ? - C : Pour leur faire plaisir.

- D : Est-ce que c’était un moment spécial quand tu lis les poemes à tes parents ?

- C : Une fois je leur ai dit pour la fête des mères, et une autre fois c’est pour la fête des pères…

- D : Bravo. C’est eux qui te demandent à faire ou bien c’est toi qui voulais le faire ? - C : C’est moi.

That convincingly echoes her attitudes towards poetry : ça m’a plu parce que j’aime bien…les poésies j’adore à lire et ça sert à lire pour notre bonheur (I feel happy because I like it… I adore reading the poetry and I read it to obtain happiness). She explicitely expressed her affections cast

on poetry by claiming that reading poetry equals chasing after happiness. Judging from her experiences concerning poetry with her family, it is not astonishing that she made these remarks. Till now, we must say that C is surrounded by a particularly favorable environment of poetry learning, a typical ecopoetry which we believe would not only enrich her poetic nurture but also facilitate her reading of poetry (and its linguistic elements).

Furthermore, we would love to know the role of poetry in her growing process. To our surprise, she not only recognized that poetry could aid her to read faster (probably referring to the memorisation of poems), but also reckons it as a must for reading. To prove what she believed, she offered me an example of her friend in CE1. According to her descriptions, her friend in CE1 knew little about reading in CE2, the reason lies in that she didn’t read a lot of poems in CP. Also, she added that this friend went to phonic thera-pist for help, from which we could tell that her friend may suffer certain reading difficulties.

Her association between no poetry in CP with difficulties in reading in CE1 was so natural and so affirmative that we could easily infer that poetry is indispensable (fundamental and almost compulsory) in her reading process. We didn’t expect that C’s ecopoetry has literally created a binding relation between poetry and reading. Subjective may it be, we believe that this binding accumulates her confidence in reading, and may gently lead her to the literacy world in a poetic manner.

- D : Est-ce que tu penses que la poésie peut t’aider à grandir ?

- C : Oui, parce que déjà on apprend plus vite…parce que j’ai une amie à CE1 qui n’a pas trop lu le poème au CP et du coup elle sait pas encore lire à CE1.

- D : Tu penses que n’ayant pas appris la poésie l’arrête à apprendre à lire à CE1 ? - C : Elle sait un peu lire parce qu’elle est chez orthophoniste.

The parallel terms

C knows little about nursery rhymes, so we concentrated on her knowledge of poetry and songs. From her answer, we could see that she likes songs a lot however remains a bit shy when compared to her friend who could sing well. Similar to most kids of CP in our interview, C confused poetry with songs when she adopted « chanter » (sing) for both. The only difference between the two terms for her is that poetry should be sung slowly while songs faster.

- D : Tu sais qu’est-ce que c’est, une chanson ? - C : Oui. C’est une bonne chose.

- D : T’aimes bien ?

- C : Oui. J’ai une amie qui aime bien, mais je vais chanter quand je serai plus grande, au CE1.

- D : La chanson et la poésie, c’est pareil ?

- C : Non. Parce qu’une poésie, ça se chante plus lentement.

Correspondences between linguistic elements in poetry and reading

Since C committed a few mistakes when reading the given poem, I read a second time for her to grasp the acoustic characteristics of the poem. There she picked out immediately the differences between what I read and hers, especially concerning the words that she failed to read for the first time. It is obvious that she has paid great attention to every word when she read and remembered those in which she had difficulties. Furthermore, she pos-sesses her own sensibility of sounds for certain words, such as murmur, claiming it as a pretty word; and also a preliminary phonological awareness to identify similar sounds in poem (often extended to rhymes), for instance, la and là, brin and bien.

- D : Je relis une autre fois. Qu’est-ce que tu entends ? - C : J’ai entendu qu’il y a des mots qui ont changé.

- D : Ça veut dire que ce n’est pas pareil que je lis ? - C : Oui (ailleurs, que vois-tu, ruisselle)

- D : T’as des mots préférés ? - C : Murmure

- D : Pourquoi ?

- C : Parce que c’est un mot joli.

- D : Joli, ça veut dire quoi ? - C : Ça veut dire que j’adore.

…

- D : Est-ce qu’il y a des choses qui se répètent dans ce poème ? - C : La/là, brin/bien (ça se ressemble) …

Then C was also required to take a closer visual observation towards the given poem, she noticed the blank (the blank punctuation) in the poem. Since she has read a lot of po-ems, she quickly told me the function of the blank: separating groups of words (forming the verses and strophes) by adding that it is not a must in poem. According to her instant

response to the questions, we may infer that these linguistic elements in poetry shouldn’t be strange to her at all.

- D : Est-ce que t’as remarqué des choses dans ce poème ? - C :Du blanc

- D : Est-ce que chaque fois c’est avec du blanc quand tu apprends le poème ? - C : Des fois oui des fois non.

- D : Ça sert à quoi ?

- C : Il faut du blanc entre les lignes - D : Pourquoi ?

- C : Parce que c’est un group. (Verse/strophe)

Since C mentioned the punctuation, I then pointed at a point by asking her what that is. I intended to ask her the period in the first place however to my surprise, she elaborated her answer by covering plenty of similar signs in the text, which include all the points (or quasi-points) in the poem: letter i, period, comma, tréma, the accents (accent circonflexe, accent aigu, accent grave). Moreover, she could respectively name them as they are. And when I asked her the difference between comma and period, she firstly presented their resemblance in form by stating that comma looks like a period that descends; then she turned to their different functions that comma serves to the respiration (short) while peri-od is used to stop (long) the poem. In addition, she is quite aware that punctuations (black punctuations) are not necessary in poems however she believes that it would be better to have them in poetry.

- D : Et la virgule ? Pareil que le point ?

- C : Non, parce que la virgule c’est un point qui descend.

- D : Oui, est-ce qu’on s’arrête quand on voit la virgule ? - C : Oui.

- D : Et du coup quelle est la différence entre la virgule et le point ? - C : La virgule c’est pour respirer et un point c’est pour arrêter le poème.

- D : Respirer, c’est long ou court ? - C : Court.

- D : Est-ce que tout ça c’est nécessaire dans le poème ? - C : Non.

- D : S’il n’y a pas de ça dans poème, ça marche ou pas ? - C : Ça marche.

- D : C’est mieux avec ou pas ?