Apprendre à orthographier les verbes : le cas de l'homophonie des finales e /E/

Abstract

In a context of the development of works dedicated to writing systems and to the acquisition and the didactics of spelling, normative and social pressures leave teachers confused about the teaching and learning of spelling. In respect of the difficulty raised by the /E / verbal endings, a didactic sequence was implemented in 5th grade involving 195 pupils. The objective was to teach pupils to use the analogical procedure, which involves replacing the ambiguous form by a more transparent one (for example prendre in the place of trouver; pris in the place of trouve). The results show that the didactic sequence was effective, as far as the discrimination of the modal opposition ?e/?er and the agreement of the past participle employed with etre are concerned. The side effects of the experimentation are then discussed. Thus we intend to contribute: i) to improve the instruction given for requested linguistic operations; ii) to analyze precisely the pupils’ procedures; iii) to formulate proposals for the didactic teaching of grammatical spelling.