"Opposites" in early learning of written language

This study forms part of a broader educational intervention project in the teaching and learning of written language, which plans both the reading materials and the conditions of the children's written productions. The study focuses in particular on the situation of learning to write, using pairs of antonyms with pre-school and early primary school children (5- and 7-year-olds) in order to explore and describe the advantages of these materials and to analyse the nature and the quantity of antonyms that the children are able to produce. In the process we systematically design a teaching sequence comprising specific teaching and learning activities that include an input which constitutes the model for the description and analysis of the children's written productions. We provide evidence on the influence of antonyms in the acquisition of vocabulary and the possibility of generating reflection on the semantic relations and the metalinguistic activities that favour the learning of written language.