Emergent Literacy: Types of Beliefs of a Group of Preschool and Special Education Teachers in Chile

Abstract

Various studies show that teachers’ beliefs are an important factor to explain teaching practices. However, in Latin American countries, there is a lack of studies on the educational concepts regarding emergent literacy and the factors that influence it. This research thus analyzes the beliefs of a group of teachers about emergent literacy and its relationship with the learning environment in the classroom and with one of the least-studied influencing factors: the socio-family context. The research was qualitative with a psycho-phenomenological approach and was conducted through in-depth interviews. The analysis revealed that the predominant type of belief is unsophisticated, with non-cognitive characteristics that emerge from knowledge derived from a discourse based mainly on the co-constructivist model of literacy. In addition, using NVivo software, it was determined that the participants’ discourse did not exceed 13% consistency with the theory in each analysis category.