The study presented new metrics for assessing 7-year-old students in the country
OR Ministry of Education (MEC) presented this Wednesday, 31, the criteria that will be taken into account from now on in the country to define that a child is literate. Among the parameters for 7-year-old pupils attending the 2nd year of elementary school, writing notes and invitations and reading simple texts, strips and comics.
The child is also expected to understand the relationships between sounds and letters and not just read isolated words or sentences, but texts with certain characteristics.
According to these parameters, 56.4% of 2nd year students are not literate in Brazilaccording to the latest assessments by the National Basic Assessment System (Saeb), carried out in 2021. This index was the opposite in 2019, before the pandemic, with 40% of them illiterate.
The Minister of Education, Camilo Santana, said that “this reality shames us”, also commenting on the results of the PIRLS international evaluation, published this month. The test analyzes the reading of 4th graders and showed Brazil in the last positions. “We hope that in a few years we can present numbers of change, we can be proud to have a country that makes its children literate”.
According to the MEC, 251 teachers from 206 cities across the country, all states and the Federal District analyzed questions on the Saeb test to identify whether literate children would be able to answer them. The Alfabetiza Brasil survey was conducted by the National Institute of Research and Educational Studies (Inep).
After the first phase, a group of specialists analyzed the results to define the parameters. The cutoff point for literacy in the defined Saeb test was 743 points. “We have made an effort to understand the different realities we have in the country”, said the director of the Inep basic education council, Rubens Lacerda, “The idea was to make this concrete in a number, in a synthesis, which separates the tasks that literate children may or may not perform.”
According to Inep, the research was aimed at defining these parameters also due to the lack of consensus in the academic world. During the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL) the area of literacy was the subject of controversy since the previous administration had defined that only one method was used in schools, the phonic method, to teach reading and writing. “There are many elements in the teaching routine. We teachers are very clear when a student gets to a certain point and takes off, always supported by theoretical elements,” said Hilda Aparecida Linhares da Silva, of the Saeb advisory commission, who participated in the research .
According to Minister Camilo Santana, the survey will serve to guide the literacy policy that will be launched in the next few days by the federal government. “It was important for us to define, standardize for the whole country, as each state used different indicators,” he said. The MEC awaits the agenda of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) to launch a literacy pact, in which the ministry must finance and provide technical support to states and municipalities to ensure that children learn to read and write in the 2nd year.
Source: Terra

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