PURPOSE: to characterize the performance of school reading and writing to students enrolled in the third grade of elementary school. METHOD: the study included 160 children aged between 8 and 9 years old (average of 8 years and 7 months). The data collection instrument was used to measure: Performance Handbook School - Analysis of Reading and Writing in the early grades of elementary schools - MDE (Rosa Neto, Santos, TORO, 2010). For analysis and interpretation of data it was used the Excel and SPSS for Windows 17.0 programs. RESULTS: it was found that the students had an average of 75.88% accuracy on the general performance of the EAW, and among the average score between the categories of the manual, the writing had the lowest percentage, 72.10% accuracy. CONCLUSION: it was verified that 40% (n=64) in the sample are fully literate, ie able to read fluently and understand the general meaning of the text, to locate information, to make inferences and formulate hypotheses about the text content. In writing, they are able to write legibly and understand a short text, according to the standards required by our culture. However, 50% (n=80) of the students assessed is still in the learning process of reading and writing and 10% (n=16) of children showed poor performance to the level they were in school, or in the early stages of literacy.
Reading; Handwriting; Students
