SPELLING DIFFICULTIES PRESENTED BY 5TH GRADE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

FROM ASSESSMENT TO TEACHING POSSIBILITIES

Abstract

This study examines the orthographic difficulties presented by 5th-grade students from a public elementary school in the countryside of Rio Grande do Norte, based on writing assessment activities. The main objective is to investigate the orthographic difficulties manifested in a diagnostic writing task, identifying the most recurrent types of errors and discussing the need for specific pedagogical practices to advance the learning process of the official orthographic system. The theoretical framework draws on the contributions of Lemle (2001), Faraco (2003), Morais (1996), and Soares (2020), who understand orthography as a social convention and advocate systematic and reflective instruction connected with the development of orthographic awareness. Methodologically, this qualitative field study was conducted with 5th-grade elementary students, using writing assessments and a questionnaire administered to the classroom teacher as data collection instruments. The results reveal that although most students are at the alphabetic writing stage, spelling errors persist, particularly those related to the non-one-to-one relationship between phonemes and graphemes, oral language interference, homophony, the substitution of graphemes with similar phonetic values, and phonological and dialectal issues. The analysis highlights the need for planned, systematized, and intentional pedagogical interventions, reaffirming writing assessment as a fundamental tool for diagnosis, reflection, and the planning of orthography instruction in the early years of elementary education.