The development of sociolinguistic awareness at schools in Brazilian Portuguese and reading success
National and international assessments show that Brazil fails to teach reading in its entire system of public education. This paper argues that the explanation for the success in early reading of a part of students might be related to the development of sociolinguistic awareness (Compernolle, Williams 2013). The rates of variation in four phonological variables (reduction of diphthongs, ingliding, internal -r coda deletion and vocalization of lateral palatal) in three different stylistic contexts (to - from + monitored speech: Short interview -> Picture naming -> Reading aloud task) collected in a classroom of 3rd grade show a gradual relation between the increase in stylistic monitoring and the use of standard variant. These results reveal that the development of sociolinguistic awareness can be measured by the transposition of the variant into spontaneous speech for the reading aloud, suggesting automaticity in decoding process by lexical route (Coltheart, Rastle 1994).
