Improving Reading and Writing Literacy in I Cycle of Primary Education in Montenegro

The aim of this research is to examine didactic/pedagogical issues and teaching/learning strategies by determining the characteristics of pre-literary skills in the I grade, reading skills in the II grade and reading and writing skills in the III grade, as well as to which difficulties teachers are encountered in the literacy process itself. We observed primary public school pupils - 136 in I and 136 in II grades and 400 in III grades from Podgorica, Mojkovac, Budva and Nikšić. The number of examined teachers from the same schools is 83. It was noticed that a significant number of I grade pupils did not have functional linking of symbols, has difficulties in understanding the words structures. Pupils in the II grade do not make a distinction in hand written and hand printed letters and have difficulties with punctuation. There are difficulties in general understanding and the simultaneous processing of information; the existence of elements of dyslexia and dysgraphia was observed. Among pupils in III grades there is uncertainty in writing, insufficient knowledge of fine graphomotorics, each 10th child has a difficulty in reading and understand what was read, around 13% has a difficulty in writing down what was read, and about 22% of them has a reduced skill to write a story based on the picture. The study findings show a need to redefine teaching goals, increase the number of hours for acquiring pre-school skills, teaching languages and teaching literature, propose more clearly the activities of adopting pre and general literacy skills, earlier learning of the Latin letters, to modernize teaching, and have a team approach.