Adults writing profile at the beginning of their reading and writing acquisition

ABSTRACT Purpose: to describe and analyze the writing profile of 12 adults in the literacy phase. Methods: 12 students of both genders enrolled in the Youth and Adult Education Program (EJA) of public school in a medium-sized city in the state of São Paulo. The study was divided into two stages: proposal presentation to participants and School Performance Test assessment to evaluate the writing phase and the type of error presented by each participant. Results: the majority of the results belonged to the alphabetical phase (criterion established by Ferreiro and Teberosky). The most frequent errors were grapheme omissions and oral support. Conclusion: results indicated the need to focus on the alphabetic principle acquisition, which allows the initial writing by the phonological route, and to work the differences between standard and colloquial language.