RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 The People Speak Their Word: Learning to Read and Write in São Tomé and Principe
JF Harvard Educational Review
JO herp
FD Harvard Educational Press
SP 27
OP 30
DO 10.17763/haer.51.1.r15h5764757j12l2
VO 51
IS 1
A1 Freire, Paulo
YR 1981
UL http://harvardeducationalreview.org/content/51/1/27.abstract
AB Paulo Freire reflects here on his role as consultant to the Adult Literacy Program in the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Principe—a role whose political nature, he argues,must be recognized. Repudiating purely mechanical approaches to teaching literacy,Freire advocates a theory and practice that links reading the word to "reading" the context. With the aid of primers, referred to as Popular Culture Notebooks, and the learners' own generation of words and terms relevant to their daily lives, adults learn to read and write through critical reflection, thus enabling them to realize their rights as human beings and to transform themselves and history.