The use of opposites in the classroom when learning reading and writing

This study is an analysis of the written and oral production of lists of opposite words by children from five to six years of age and of the evolution of this production after a session of classroom instruction. In application of the principle that the efficacy of language teaching increases when it is based on students' linguistic competencies, opposite words were used as the learning content when teaching the children to read and write. The analysis features descriptions and comparisons of the students' language production with the aim of identifying differences between oral and written productions and between before and after the intervention. The classroom session led to the identification of the processes underlying the learning of opposite words. The results show an increase in vocabulary in both the oral and the written tasks after the intervention, with these two types of tasks displaying certain differences, described in the text. This increase is interpreted in light of the patterns exhibited in the learning tasks, their linked and sequential nature and the evolution of the sessions through work with children's literary texts that favour metalinguistic capacity and the possibilities of reading and writing.