ABSTRACT
There are advantages in being the fifth child in a family of six children: you get a few goes at learning to read. One of my sisters is two years older than me. When I was four, she let me help her with her homework. She had a book full of words and letters and other things. She had to cut them and glue them on her homework notebook. I was learning to use scissors and was hugely proud of cutting (almost) exactly where she told me to. The next sister down the line is one year older than me. She also let me help her with her homework. She was learning to read a book called ‘Lalau, Lili e o Lobo’. ‘Lalau’ is a nickname for Nicolau, I suppose now, but I never asked. ‘Lili’ is a girl’s name. ‘Lobo’ means wolf. The wolf was bad but he became friendly with Lalau and Lili before the end of the book. I think you have guessed that ‘Lalau, Lili e o Lobo’ was a reader that used a syllabic approach to reading instruction. It is actually quite suited for Portuguese, which is the language I first learned to speak and to read. The first story used four consonants – l, b, t and m – combined with vowels. My job was to cut the five basic syllables that could be formed with each consonant plus a vowel (e.g. la, le, li, lo, lu) and cut some isolated vowels. I could then help my sister glue them on the homework book if the syllables I put together formed words. I had a promotion as a helper: I could think of words that were formed with the syllables, cut syllables and letters, put them in order, and glue them in the homework book. I loved it and formed lots of words. But sometimes my sister rejected my words, she said that they were no good. Why was ‘balela’ (‘fib’) good but ‘balola’ was no good? She said that words are not just syllables put together, they have meaning: you can find out what they mean in this big fat book called dictionary. In the subsequent year, I started to learn to read. I went to school full of confidence: ‘Lalau, Lili e o Lobo’ had been my friends for two years. But reform had struck: the whole books method greeted me with ‘Sarita e seus amiguinhos’. The teacher told us to cut the long strips into words. I went home and told my mother I would never learn to read. I could not possibly memorise all the words in the dictionary, as I had memorised letters and syllables. Somehow or other, I did learn to read and write, even though I haven’t forgotten the shock. But now I often think of Ms Efigenia, my teacher. I’m sure reform struck her more painfully than it struck me.
