Habilidades semánticas y rendimiento académico en escolares de 2° y 4° año básico

Abstract

Through school years, the main linguistic changes are in semantic, syntactic and pragmatic areas. Many foreign studies propose that older child have a higher semantic development, specifically in word definition skills, lexical comprehension and understanding of figurative language. However, in national context, there is a little information about this topic. The objective was to determine performance in semantic skills in students of 2nd and 4th grade and their association with academic performance. Method non experimental, analytic, comparative and transversal study which considers 58 children of a school in Santiago. The semantic skills were measured with the “Test de Vocabulario en Imágenes” (TEVI-R) and a test of semantic abilities created in this study. The academic performance considered the mean of qualifications during 2nd trimester in subjects of Language, Math, Natural and Social Science. The created test showed validity and reliability to assess semantic abilities relevant with word definition skills and understanding of figurative language. Statistically significant difference was found between both groups performance in semantic skills studies, with a higher performance in 4th grade students. No statistically significant difference was found between academic performance and semantic abilities mentioned. As school grade increases, children improve their performance in semantic skills of word definition, lexical comprehension and understanding of figurative language. However, there is no relation between academic performance and semantic abilities studied.