The Effectiveness of an Early-Grade Literacy Intervention on the Cognitive Achievement of Brazilian Students

In 2012, the Brazilian Ministry of Education launched the National Pact of Literacy at the Right Age (Pacto Nacional pela Alfabetização na Idade Certa [PNAIC]). The PNAIC’s goal is ambitious. It seeks to improve the literacy skills of 6to 8-year-olds in public schools throughout Brazil. The government’s decision to implement this literacy intervention nationally in the first three grades of primary school was influenced by the apparent success of a similar 3-year program—Literacy Program at the Right Age (Pacto pela Alfabetização na Idade Certa [PAIC])—first implemented in 2007 in one (lowincome) northeastern Brazilian state, Ceará. Ceará’s illiteracy rate among 7to 14-year-olds declined from 18% in 2001 to 14% in 2007, similarly to the rest of the Northeast, in a period of increasing educational attainment for this age group. However, after introducing the PAIC, the literacy rate in Ceará fell to 6% by 2011, a significantly larger drop than in other northeastern states (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografía e Estadística, 2001, 2007, 2011). In addition to more rapid declines in illiteracy rates after 2007, primary school–age students in Ceará made significant gains in reading and mathematics achievement compared with other states, as measured by Brazil’s national test, the Prova Brasil. Yet, no rigorous impact evaluation has been done to assess whether students’ testscore gains (and, by implication, increases in literacy rates) in Ceará were directly due to the PAIC or rather due to other educational conditions specific to Ceará in the period, 2007 to 2011. PAIC resembles a widely implemented U.S. early reading intervention, Reading First. Based on the U.S. national evaluation of Reading First, we would not expect PAIC effects on student outcomes to be significant. Reading First had 571437 EPAXXX10.3102/0162373715571437Costa and CarnoyEffectiveness of an Early-Grade Literacy Intervention research-article2015