Poesía en los primeros años de la infancia: la relevancia de su inclusión en la escuela

Abstract

Poetic language is natural for the preschooler, to whom animistic thinking is inherent. This imaginative potential has been characterized as the poetic dimension of the human psyche, the poetic sentiment of life or even the unintentional poetry of children. However, when they begin scholastic programs, this capacity is halted, because school reinforces literal construction in the use of language. Therefore, it is not recognized that poetry brings children closer to vital and aesthetic experiences that they would not otherwise have. This paper analyzes the pre-schooler's process of constructing poetic discourse through its description and analysis. It is based on a comparative study carried out between 2009 and 2011 that juxtaposes a private school with a school in a vulnerable context, both in the community of Talca (Chile). Additionally, it explores didactic strategies used by preeschool educators in their mediation of literary reading. The main results indicate that literary texts are introduced mainly to develop reading comprehension, to the detriment of creativity and the poetic function of language inherent to literature. A proof of these results can be appreciated in the scarce use of child-like language with an imaginative function.