Children's literary text: reading comprehension and literary language

Abstract

This article aims to reflect upon how children’s literature, as text, is characterized based on its reading and the readers whose development is mediated by this text. This proposal stems from a perception that although reading practices of these texts are common in the classroom, what motivates this practice is not the literary language in itself, but the development of linguistic conscience through the language structures identified in the text. The arguments herein presented intend to characterize children’s literature through the concept of literary language and to defend the need for qualified mediation, both to expand the reader’s literary repertoire and to promote the development of autonomous readers who are able to read, understand, and build meaningful interactions with the literary language, which, in turn, will enable the presence of this practice in their reading experience.