Senior Researcher at the University of Pisa teaches General Didactics and Specific Learning Disorders and Special pedagogy and inclusive education in the Course of Degree Primary Education Sciences. She is a member of the doctoral board in philosophy for the Universities of Pisa and Florence. She also holds the position of university referent for the training of kindergarten and primary school teachers within the Teacher Learning Center at the University of Pisa. She is a member of the Steering Committee of the Italian Society of Special Pedagogy (SIPES).
Research and study themes, on which she has published articles, essays, and monographs: Specific Learning Disorders and scholastic difficulties in general; teacher training, inclusive teaching design; job placement of people with disabilities; disability and the project of life.
THE GRAMMAR OF FANTASY BY GIANNI RODARI TO TEACH READING AND WRITING TO STUDENTS WITH DSA
If we try to decline the infinite proposals that Gianni Rodari has left us, we can easily trace in all of ludolinguistica many characteristics suitable for promoting learning in all of our young students and, specifically, we can glimpse that reasonable accommodation which essentially asks not to facilitate or simplify the teaching proposal, therefore not to remove opportunities and complexity from learning, but rather to modify and make the teaching methodology applied by the teachers more clear and usable. If this represents a valid methodological approach for all children, let’s try to imagine what it can mean for those who have a Specific Learning Disorder. Through crossword puzzles, rebuses, and language games in general, we can activate greater involvement in syntactic, semantic, and, last but not least, metasemantic learning. Working with Rodari’s legacy means having the courage to move the pedagogical and didactic perspective from teaching to learning, finally recognizing the decisive importance of the approach to knowledge of the human child mind. At the same time, it is necessary to overcome the implicit diffidence towards play and therefore of pleasure, which continues to condition relationships between adults and children. The idea that having fun is a stumbling block for learning, and more generally and more classically for knowledge, is perhaps one of the worst pedagogical crimes of our time.