Introduction

The institution of the National Literacy Policy, henceforth NLP, in 2019, has generated several debates throughout Brazil by researchers who have expressed their opposition to the proposals it advocates, which seek to silence the voices resisting the neoliberal project that prioritizes, above all, the economy and the conservative cultural profile in which education, especially literacy, is seen as a commodity and/or the simplistic training of subjects to master the linguistic code using the phonic method in disregard of the social uses of writing.

In this movement of intense national debates, protests and academic productions in conflict with the conceptions and guidelines of this policy, the Literacy Network Collective emerged, a working group that brings together researchers from the five regions of Brazil, with the aim of studying the reception and (re)signification of the NLP by teachers working in public education networks. The Literacy Network Collective takes the position that the NLP stops with what had been built and carried out in the field of literacy and the training of literacy teachers, with regards to conceptions of teaching and learning written language, as well as concepts and processes of literacy and literacy.

After collecting data at a national level, in December 2020 the Collective published a partial report entitled "^{Alfabetização em Rede: uma investigação sobre o ensino remoto da alfabetização na pandemia covid-19 - relatório técnico (parcial)" (2020}), which aimed to publicize the first results of the research, carried out with teachers from public and private education networks that work in Early Childhood Education and the initial years of Primary Education in Brazil, on remote literacy teaching, which is one of the focuses of the research.

This article, however, aims to discuss the focus "reception of the NLP", which is the object of the investigation, by cutting out the data referring to the state of Alagoas. The focus is therefore to understand how literacy teachers who teach in elementary school classes received the NLP, based on the following problem: although neoliberal, conservative and reducing literacy, was the NLP well received by literacy teachers in Alagoas? The answer(s) to this problem/question will be developed throughout the text.

This article is organized into four sections. In the first, we discuss the relationship between ideology and the proposal of educational policies, making a discussion in interface with the ideological sign of Bakhtin's circle and Ball's Policy Cycle. In the second section, we follow the discursive path about the context of practice in which the NLP has been implemented. In the third section, we present the methodology adopted, explaining the nature of the research, the data collection instruments, the delimitation of the corpus and the criteria used, as well as the analysis model. In the fourth section, we analyze the emerging categories. Finally, we offer some final, albeit provisional, considerations.

Ideology and educational policy

The National Literacy Policy (NLP, 2019) emerges against a scenario of instability and uncertainty in the face of the bad government of President Jair Messias Bolsonaro, elected by the Brazilian people in the 2018 elections. We define the scenario as unstable and uncertain because we consider it a break with the forms of government that had been in place, especially since 2003, which defended agendas considered left-wing and based on the concept of social justice (^{Ball, 2001}), while the aforementioned president was elected for his conservative discourse, protection of the traditional family, the Christian religion and the free market, among other points considered extreme right-wing and neoliberal.

Unlike educational policies aimed at promoting social justice (^{Ball, 2001}), the NLP reaffirms the ideo(methodo)logical aspect of the right-wing (^{Mortatti, 2019}), by thinking of literacy as a technically directed and explicit process (which has never been denied by Brazilian researchers) but, above all, with clear and well-defined limits for post-literacy processes. It's no coincidence, nor is it gullibility, that the NLP's defenders repeatedly claim that it's necessary to first learn to read to only after that learn from reading. In this context, the phonic method is seen as the solution/redemption for illiteracy and school failure among Brazilian children.

If we think about the acquisition of written language through the lens of literacy (^{Soares, 2016}), the concept/process of using written language in social practices, systematically combated by the NLP, we observe that children, before and during the literacy process through formal devices, concurrently experience the process of learning to read the alphabetic writing system, as well as learning from reading, even if they can't read fluently, they do logographic reading (^{Soares, 2016}): recognizes the writing of common words in their daily life, in the social practices that they experience. Therefore, it seems wrong to think of the process based on the segregation of the constituent parts of words, but specifically on phoneme-grapheme correspondence, the basic principle of phonic instruction.

It is clear that the ideology behind the implementation of the NLP, via a presidential decree in April 2019, is the same as the one that made clear the voice of the right-wing layers and movements that had been asserting themselves since 2013, which validates the silencing of the multiple divergent voices and justifies the imposition of ^{Decree No. 9,765 (2019}). Civil society, Brazilian educators and literacy experts were not heard, nor were researchers and universities with a scientific tradition in the country for the creation and implementation of the NLP as a national literacy policy.

On this issue (the formulation of educational policies), Steffen ^{Ball (1994}, ²⁰⁰¹, ²⁰⁰²) proposes the theory of the Policy Cycle, in order to emphasize that educational policies are permeated by three contexts, which are: the context of influence, which corresponds to the proposed policy loaded with ideologies and interests of those who propose it; the context of production, which breaks with the simple idea/proposal, becoming the actual policy; and the context of practice, which concerns the policy in use, its implementation.

We use the Bakhtin's Circle (^{Faraco, 2009}) to conceptualize ideology in interface with Ball's Policy Cycle, understanding it from two angles: official ideology and ideology of everyday life. For ^{Volóchinov (2017}), ideology of everyday life emerges from casual encounters with other subjects, in real, recurring and unexpected situations, in/for the references we construct. It is life on the agenda of its discursive pluralities. Official ideology, on the other hand, corresponds with the relative domination based on a (single) conception of the world that seeks to disseminate itself in order to (re)produce the discourses of the economically and politically dominant class.

For Bakhtin's Circle, the boundaries between ideological modalities are not so clearly demarcated, given that they touch each other and mix at certain points, considering the subjects who signify them in the interactions and the symbolic exchanges developed in/by social groups. The boundaries end up blurring themselves. The superstructure itself only exists in coexistence with the structure. This confirms that the act of (wanting to) silence other voices is interactive in the strict sense, because it recognizes, even if it denies, other sayings, other signs. Silencing is not neutral and predicts the domination and ideological hegemony of a class. In this respect, ^{Miotello (2005}, p. 173) states:

In this sign of renewal, the sign of refraction of ideology is also present, since the dominant class gives the ideological sign an intangible, immutable and supra-social class character, stifling or hiding the struggle of social indices of value, and spreading the discourse of monovolence. Maintaining social division and perpetuating the hegemony of the dominant class requires that the contradictory signs hidden throughout the ideological sign are kept hidden.

The author goes on to explain that the various voices that echo from/in the signs reveal the ideological-social contradictions between past and present, between other past eras, between different groups, between future possibilities. Ideology, whether official or everyday life, is produced and produces the movement of reflecting and refracting from/by the ideological sign. The arena of conflict between the many meanings experiences constant clashes. It is in this sense that ^{Faraco (2009}, p. 56), based on the assumptions of the Circle, conceptualizes refraction as "[...] the tangle of thousands of dialogical threads woven by sociological consciousness (that is, by the whole of ideological creation) around each object [...] like the tower of Babel that surrounds each and every object".

Educational policies, as a symbol and symbolic object, are loaded with converging voices (that want to be heard) and diverging voices (that want to be silenced), which ensures their dialogical essence, because as Bakhtin's Circle states, every saying is oriented towards what has already been said, just as every saying is oriented towards a response and is internally dialogized (^{Faraco, 2009}). If we think of the NLP in terms of its dialogical character, we can see the marked presence of the voices of the social/political group that proposes it, but in dialogue with the groups/theories it is intended to silence. After all, the internalized dialogism that permeates every saying, and by extension the NLP, reinforces the silenced voices. These voices go against the others echoed in the document and throughout its proposal.

In the unspoken saying of the NLP, we hear the voices that defend literacy, for example. As an ideological sign of Brazilian teachers, literacy is still present in the ideology of everyday life of literacy teachers due to its decades-long tradition in our schools. ^{Miotello (2005}, p. 174) states that "[...] the durability of official ideology is no greater than the duration of the ideology of everyday life".

In this discursive-dialogical approach to the NLP, and considering ^{Ball's Policy Cycle (2001}), the proposal and implementation of educational policies are closely linked to official ideology, despite the contexts of influence and production. It is based on the ideology that is intended to be validated as the discourse of the dominant class. The idea that teachers should engage with the idea that the NLP is the educational policy that will redeem the failure of literacy in Brazil makes explicit the well-marked political-ideological position of its proposers: "The cognitive science of language affirms that, contrary to what certain theories suppose, learning to read and write is neither natural nor spontaneous" (^{NLP, 2019}, p. 21). The latter (the context of production) validates the discourse through official documents, which become ideological signs of what it says.

The ideological signs in the PNA's context of production take effect with Decree No. 9.765/2019, in the NLP book - ^{National Literacy Policy (NLP, 2019}) and, more recently, in the National Evidence-Based Literacy Report [Renabe] (^{Secretariat of Literacy, 2020}), which resulted from the National Evidence-Based Literacy Conference (Conabe).

As an artifice of persuasion about the validity of the NLP, the repeated discourse on scientific evidence for the adoption of the phonic method based on the cognitive sciences of reading emerges. This artifice is quite explicit in Renabe (^{Secretariat of Literacy, 2020}), in the section dealing with evidence. The document states that: "The term 'evidence' refers to findings that result from scientific research. Evidence-based literacy is literacy that employs procedures and resources whose effects have been tested and shown to be effective" (^{Secretariat of Literacy, 2020}, p. 28). On the other hand, ^{Gontijo and Antunes (2019}), when discussing the views of Ministry of Education (MEC) specialists and collaborators in proposing the NLP, list counter-words regarding the definitions of the research methodologies that subsidize the NLP in order to strengthen the discourse of scientific evidence adopted in it.

^{Gontijo and Antunes (2019}) point out that the NLP discredits studies that are not based on experimental methodologies, which is questionable because it ignores qualitative research. ^{Frade (2019}, p. 17) says: "[...] we can say that, regardless of whether they are experimental studies with control groups or controlled intervention in the classroom, these studies end up escaping from the broader context in which all the factors intervene at the same time". In other words, experimental research, as advocated by the PNA and its proposers, is an attempt to validate a political-ideological discourse, as mentioned above.

It is in this sense that ^{Frade (2019}, p. 17) adds when he says that research in favor of evidence to validate such a discourse as the NLP "[...] cut out a specific aspect to build its lens for reading reality". Corroborating with this thought, ^{Mainardes (2006}, p. 52) points out that "[...] political texts are the result of disputes and agreements, as the groups operating within the different places of text production compete to control political representations".

Beyond the influences and production of policies, there is implementation, which takes place in the context of practice. This begins with the dissemination of the policy through teacher training instruments and the production of materials to help engage literacy teachers in receiving the policy and, subsequently, in their pedagogical practice. It is in this context that we can see how the policy is received by literacy teachers, as in the NLP.

NLP in the context of practice

In the context of practice, educational policies become effective (or not), with recontextualizations based on teachers' know-how and their ideological background. It is in this context that the policy is subject to interpretations and recreations that can result in significant transformations to the original proposal. In this direction, ^{Bowe, Ball and Gold (1992}, p. 22, emphasis added) point out:

Professionals do not face policy texts as naive readers, they come with their histories, experiences, values and purposes [...]. Policies will be interpreted differently, since histories, experiences, values, purposes and interests are diverse. 'The point is that the authors of political texts cannot control the meaning of their texts. Parts can be rejected, selected, ignored, deliberately misunderstood, replies can be superficial, etc. Furthermore, interpretation is a matter of dispute. Different interpretations will be contested, since they relate to different interests, one or other interpretation will predominate, although deviations or minority interpretations may be important.

We agree with the aforementioned authors regarding the responsive-active role (^{Bakhtin, 2011}) that teachers take on in the process of implementing educational policies. There is, therefore, the production of other and diverse meanings by these professionals in spite of a policy laden with ideology, but reconfigured based on the ideological signs that constitute these subjects. Ordinary knowledge immersed in the context of practice comes into play, which ^{Chartier (2007}) stresses that it is constructed in action, given the set of variables that impact action, generating experience.

In this sense, it is not a set of previously defined procedures or structured material that will determine what happens in the context of the classroom, because this context is dynamic and both students and teachers interpret what happens and react in order to progress with the teaching [...] (^{Frade, 2019}, p. 16).

Teachers have know-how linked to practice as well as theory that gives them the know-how to act in the face of imposed policies. In this way, "[...] they use a considerable amount of 'scientific knowledge' in their classrooms, but they are not always aware of this, because certain knowledge already belongs so much to their categories of thought and their school culture that they use it as if it were a natural reality" (^{Chartier, 2010}, p. 13).

Corroborating with ^{Chartier (2007}, 2010) and ^{Frade (2019}), ^{Ball (1994}) proposes a distinction between 'politics as text' and 'politics as discourse' in order to better understand the context of the practice. The author clarifies that politics as text is based on literary theory (of an ideological nature of the group proposing it), so that only certain influences, voices and agendas are recognized, heard and legitimized. When it comes to politics as discourse, there is the possibility of constructing certain meanings, but it seeks to distribute voices, since it is intended that only the recruited voices are heard, which gives them authority. This is the case, for example, with the discourse of scientific evidence aimed at legitimizing the NLP and the phonic method, disseminated as something new in Brazilian education/literacy. It can be seen that policy as a discourse is eminently persuasive, and occurs especially in the context of practice.

In the case of the NLP, the voices legitimized for its implementation in the context of practice have been happening since 2019 through programs and actions that are part of this policy, such as the Tempo de Aprender, Conta pra Mim, Alfabetização Baseada na Ciência (ABC) programs and, more recently, through the GraphoGame Brasil app.

According to the MEC's website, ^{Ordinance No. 280 (2020}) "Institutes the Tempo de Aprender Program, with the aim of improving the quality of literacy in all public schools in Brazil" (Art. 1).The programme has four organizational axes: I - Continued training for literacy professionals; II - Pedagogical support for literacy; III - Improvement of literacy assessments and; IV - Valuing literacy professionals, through the institution of awards for literacy teachers (Art. 2). In this way, the MEC persuasively conceptualizes this literacy program as comprehensive, so as to promote actions aimed at improving the pedagogical and managerial training of teachers and managers, offering online/practical training with a focus on the phonic method/cognitive sciences of reading.

On the other hand, the Conta pra Mim Program was instituted by ^{Ordinance No. 421 (2020}), "[...] with the purpose of guiding, stimulating and promoting family literacy practices throughout the national territory" (Art. 1). The program is aimed at Brazilian families, with priority given to those in socio-economic vulnerability, according to the same Ordinance. A news report on the MEC's website on August 27, 2020, with the title 'MEC launches Conta pra Mim collection' talks about the availability of 40 books in digital format, which should be read by families, printed and painted by children, if possible. The action also included making available a series of videos containing animated songs and fables.

This second action to implement the NLP is contradictory to the discourse of prioritizing families in situations of vulnerability, considering that the devices are merely virtual, which could constitute a barrier to access to the collection by the public considered to be a priority. Both actions seek to strengthen the policy as a discourse so that they don't suffer contradictory discursive replicas. It's convenient to point out that the context of the practice is revealing in the acceptance/reception of the proposed policy. However, even if they are convinced of the policy's validity, in practice teachers let actions of recontextualization emerge.

In the context of recontextualization, [...] texts, signed or not by the official sphere, are fragmented as they circulate in the social body of education, some fragments are more valued to the detriment of others and are associated with other fragments of texts capable of re-signifying and refocusing them. The rules of recontextualization regulate the formation of pedagogical discourse specific to a given context (^{Lopes, 2005}, p. 54).

Recontextualization, beyond the policy proposed and in the process of being implemented, considers the context in which the subjects are inserted, the ideologies that constitute them and the know-how built up in pedagogical practice. The context of practice is "[...] a micro-political process. In this context, one can identify the existence of a context of influence, a context of text production (written or not) and a context of practice" (^{Mainardes, 2006}, p. 59).

The process of implementing/receiving a literacy education policy like the NLP is cyclical and recontextual. As literacy teachers make use of the proposal and put it into practice in their literacy classrooms, they add, delete, adapt and recontextualize the guidelines, methods and directions (imposed) by the original proposal.

Methodological path

The epistemological curiosity to understand how the NLP has been received by literacy teachers in Alagoas resulted in this investigation, that is a development of the national research Alfabetização em Rede (Literacy in the Network), in which researchers from 28 universities located in various states of the Federation participate. It is quantitative-qualitative research (^{Sampieri, Collado & Lucio, 2013}) because it combines the results of a survey with data produced from focus groups (^{Gatti, 2005}) with literacy teachers.

So far, the research has had two phases of data collection: I) through a Google Forms questionnaire applied online between June and September 2020. This instrument contained 34 questions divided into two areas: i. Literacy during the Covid-19 pandemic; ii. The reception of the ^{NLP (2019}); II) focus groups of 6 early childhood education and elementary school teachers, held between October and December 2020, considering the two focuses separately.

However, in this study we will only analyze data from the first phase of data collection, which obtained 14,730 respondents nationwide, with 2,454 teachers participating in Alagoas. In thoses listed focuses, we will consider the 'reception of the NLP'. The teachers answered questions related to their professional profile, their initial and continuing training, and the literacy policies/official documents of which they have participated or are aware.

Regarding the NLP, the teachers were asked to reflect on the following questions: Do they know the NLP? Do they know the documents that maintain and establish it? Did they take part in the Tempo de Aprender training course, available on the MEC platform? What is their assessment of the course, considering their participation in continuing education programs under previous governments, such as Profa, Pro-Letramento and Pnaic?

We emphasize that from the 2,454 participating teachers from the state of Alagoas, we selected and analyzed the above-mentioned questions based on the responses of 144 subjects who make up the sample for this article. To do this, we used inclusion and exclusion criteria according to the profiles of the participating teachers: being a teacher of the 1st year of elementary school, since the NLP proposes to reduce the literacy cycle to the first year, despite what is proposed in the National Education Plan (NEP), which establishes the first three years of elementary school as a literacy cycle, and the National Common Curriculum Base (NCCB), resulting in a reduction to two years; being only a teacher of 1st year classes, excluding those who also work in the other years/classes of elementary school and/or in early childhood education; not holding positions concurrently with teaching in 1st grade classes, excluding those in management, coordination or pedagogical supervision; having more than 10 years of teaching experience, as we consider know-how to be important for this study, whether built up in literacy practice or through participation in continuing education programs for literacy teachers offered in the last 15 years by previous governments.

The technique used to analyze and organize the data was content analysis (^{Bardin, 2009}), which led us to construct categories emerging from the corpus. It is important to note that content analysis begins with the concept of process, or social context, and conceives of the author of political discourse as a conscious author who addresses a specific audience in particular socio-historical circumstances (^{Ball, 2002}). This technique consists of a number of stages to achieve content analysis and the emergence of categories, organized into three phases: i) pre-analysis, ii) exploration of the material and iii) treatment of the results, inference and interpretation (^{Bardin, 2009}). The following categories of analysis emerged from the data analysis: teaching know-how; knowledge of/about the NLP and; evaluation of the NLP.

Data processing, inference and interpretation

Teaching know-how

The know-how that makes up this category of analysis refers to the knowledge built up during initial and/or continuing teacher training, as well as the knowledge acquired in practice, which ^{Chartier (2000}) calls ordinary knowledge. To this end, in this study, we looked at length of experience in teaching, level of education and participation in continuing education courses focused on literacy over the last 15 years as constituents of the know-how of literacy teachers in 1st grade classes in the state of Alagoas. Based on the responses of the 144 subjects who make up this corpus of analysis, Figure 1 shows their length of experience.

Source: Data from the Literacy Network Survey, Alagoas corpus (2020).

Figure 1 Length of experience in teaching.  

Although they are all experienced teachers and, specifically, in the literacy process, 76% have been teaching for more than 16 years, which gives them authority as literacy teachers and reinforces the possibility of knowledge acquired in practice: teachers build pragmatic models and "[...] if the knowledge is not enough to be theoretically valid, it does not mean they are not be able to produce effective working tools" (^{Chartier, 2010}, p. 2).

Theoretical knowledge, however, results from contact with theories, especially in the training that teachers undergo. The National Education Guidelines and Bases Law (^{Law No. 9.394, 1996}) stipulates that initial teacher training must be at university level (full degree). However, we still have teachers trained in the High School course and even teachers without the minimum required training. Figure 2 shows the training of the teachers in the sample under analysis.

As we can observe, 96% of the teachers have an undergraduate degree, of which 56% also have a postgraduate degree (specialization and master). It can therefore be inferred that almost all of these literacy teachers have had contact with scientific knowledge through their academic training, which can enable them to theorize their practice, based on knowledge about literacy for the teaching and learning of reading and writing in the literacy cycle. Regarding the effect of theoretical knowledge on teaching, ^{Chartier (2010}, p. 15) states that "[...] scientific terms help to clarify or even redefine teachers' empirical knowledge".

Source: Data from the Alfabetização em Rede Survey, Alagoas corpus (2020).

Figure 2 Level of schooling.  

Regarding continuing education, we considered those offered at national level by previous governments: Profa (Fernando Henrique Cardoso's government), Pró-Letramento (Lula's government) and Pnaic (Dilma Rousseff's government). In addition to these, the data collection included the option 'others', giving teachers the opportunity to check if they had taken part in others besides those mentioned. Figure 3 shows this information.

Source: Data from the Literacy Network Survey, Alagoas corpus (2020).

Figure 3 Participation in continuing education focused on literacy in the last 15 years. 

The data shows that among the 144 respondents, 135 (93.75%) teachers have participated in at least one of the continuing education courses/programs offered in the last 15 years. These courses were based on literacy teaching.

In 2008, the Ministry of Education (MEC), together with the Basic Education Secretariat, launched the Continuing Education Program for Primary School Teachers - Pró Letramento. This program was also a proposal for continuing training for teachers working in the early grades of elementary school, in order to promote improvements in the quality of teaching and learning in reading, writing and mathematics. The program differed from the previous one both in terms of the political context in which it was launched, since they took place during the administrations of presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, respectively, and in terms of the literacy discourse that had been strengthened, a fact reflected in the program's name (^{Santos, 2019}, p. 41).

Pró-Letramento strengthened the discourse on literacy in the training of literacy teachers in relation to Profa, which had already introduced this discussion, albeit timidly, into the continuing education process. However, it was Pnaic which, along the lines of Pró-Letramento, broadened the discussion on literacy, considering theory and guidance for teacher practice in literacy classes (1st, 2nd and 3rd year of elementary school).

As Pnaic was the most recent program, it is important to note that 123 (85.4%) teachers in this sample took part, which reinforces the hypothesis that most of them had access to theoretical discussions about reading and writing from a literacy perspective.

Contribution of continuing education programs focused on literacy

Although ^{Chartier (2010}) argues that teachers use theoretical knowledge in their practices in a natural way, because it is impregnated in those who have that experience, the data from this investigation reveals that the perception of the teachers who make up this corpus points to the relationship between theory and practice based on continuing education, as shown in Figure 4.

Faced with the question 'Did the training programs you took part in contribute to your training?' and even though there were answer options such as 'More or less. It added little to my professional practice', 'No, the work dynamics did not help my experience', 'No, my practice has very different assumptions from those defended by the program', 'No, they only reinforced what I already knew', all the teachers in this sample recognized one or more contributions of theoretical knowledge to ordinary knowledge, whether in the context of Profa, Pró-Letramento, Pnaic or other programs aimed at training teachers.

The following contributions were found to be regular: i) reflection on the practice in the class; ii) enrichment of the pedagogical practices; and iii) learning from the experience of other participants. Therefore, the data shows that the training programs in which the experienced teachers participated contributed to their professional practice. This reinforces what Ball's Cycle argues: "[...] policies are not simply 'implemented' in this arena (context of practice), but they are subject to interpretation and then to being 'recreated'" (^{Mainardes, 2006}, p. 53, emphasis added).

In this way, returning to the concept of recontextualization, it should be pointed out that the teachers in the sample who point out the contributions of the literacy training courses they attended may have recontextualized them based on their interpretations and recreations that are based on the ideology that constitutes them.

Source: Data from the Literacy Network Survey, Alagoas corpus (2020).

Figure 4 Contributions of continuing education programs focused on literacy.  

Knowledge, participation and evaluation of the NLP proposal

The NLP as a current government policy in Brazil was launched in April 2019 and has been implemented ever since. Its proposal consists of using the phonic method for children's literacy, based on six components that are considered essential for literacy: phonemic awareness, systematic phonic instruction, oral reading fluency, vocabulary development, text comprehension and writing production (^{Decree No. 9,765}, 2019).

Although the NLP claims to propose voluntary adherence by municipalities, which are responsible for providing early childhood education and primary education, 70 teachers said there had been some discussion in the school(s)/network(s) they work in. The data thus revealed that, of the corpus under analysis, 90 teachers said they knew about the current government's National Literacy Policy, making up 62.5%. When asked what they knew about the NLP, the teachers pointed to the documents/guidelines they had access to, as shown in Figure 5.

Source: Data from the Literacy Network Survey, Alagoas corpus (2020).

Figure 5 Documents on the PNA that literacy educators are aware of. 

The data above shows that of the teachers who said they knew about the NLP, 69 said they knew the guidelines and/or the Tempo de Aprender course material; the rest only knew about the NLP Booklet (11 teachers) or the Decree establishing it (10 teachers). When asked about their participation in the Tempo de Aprender course, 64 teachers said they were taking it. This means that of the absolute total of participants in this sample (64 out of 144), 44.44% participated in the Tempo de Aprender course. However, if we consider the relative total (64 out of 90), looking only at teachers who claim to know the PNA, this percentage rises to 71.11%.

Next, teachers who had taken part in the Tempo de Aprender course were asked how they rated it, judging whether it met their training needs (Meets my training needs and contributes to my teaching work / Does not meet my needs and does not contribute to my teaching work). Although the proposal differed from previous courses they had taken part in, the teachers rated it positively, as 62 (96.9%) said that the Tempo de Aprender course proposal met their training needs and contributed to their teaching work in literacy. Only 2 (3.1%) teachers felt that the Tempo de Aprender course did not meet their training needs, nor did it contribute to their teaching work in literacy classes.

Finally, when we asked the 90 teachers who said they were familiar with the NLP if they agreed with the preparatory work for literacy along the lines presented in the policy in question, the percentages were similar to those in the evaluation of the Tempo de Aprender course: 85 (94.44%) teachers agreed and the other 5 (5.56%) teachers said they did not agree with the literacy work along the lines of the NLP.

Considering Ball's Policy Cycle, it can be seen from this data that in the context of practice, the literacy teachers of 1st grade classes in the state of Alagoas, who make up this corpus, received the NLP positively, although they have more than a decade of experience, have initial training at undergraduate level and have participated in previous programs that proposed literacy from the perspective of literacy (^{Soares, 2016}).

It can therefore be inferred that the discourse adopted by the NLP is full of converging voices (which want to be heard) and divergent voices (which want to be silenced), establishing a right-wing ideo(methodo)logical policy that presents itself as new and based on the latest scientific evidence, which may justify the positive reception by the teachers in this study in contact with the signs that are being imposed.

Thus, according to ^{Volóchinov (2017}), the official ideology comprises relative domination based on the (unique) conception of the world that it seeks to disseminate in order to (re)produce the discourses of the economically and politically dominant class. We can infer from the perspective of the NLP, that the proposal has convinced the teachers about its validity.

Final considerations

Aware of the unfinished work that constitutes us and that permeates these writings, the aim of this article is to reflect on the reception of the NLP by teachers from Alagoas who work in elementary school classes. In order to do this, we recruited experienced teachers with more than 10 years of teaching experience, who had experienced/participated in continuing education programs focused on literacy prior to the NLP.

In dialogue with Bakhtin's Circle, in order to discuss ideology based on the ideological sign; with Ball's Policy Cycle, in order to think about the contexts of influence, production and practice in the proposition and implementation of the NLP and; with other authors such as Anne-Marie Chartier, who provided the theoretical basis for making approximations and distancing between the emerging categories, we wove this discursive web that led us to some conclusions/considerations, albeit provisional:

- We recognize the NLP as a right-wing policy that disregards studies on literacy, and by extension, deletes the literacy education based on social justice;

- We believe that the teachers in the corpus analyzed have theoretical and practical know-how built up over more than a decade of teaching and initial and continuing training, especially those promoted by previous governments (Profa, Pró-Letramento and Pnaic);

- We point out that the persuasive discourse of the NLP, seeks to silence the voices of literacy, and make the voices of the scientific evidence based on cognitive language science and the phonic method heard. It has been successfully reached teachers in Alagoas who work in elementary school classes;

- We conclude that, although the teachers from Alagoas who work in elementary school classes are experienced and have had contact with the theory of reading and writing from the perspective of literacy proposed in Profa, Pró-Letramento and Pnaic, they agree with the preparatory work for literacy along the lines presented in the NLP and welcome it.

On the other hand, we would like to point out that, even though they welcome the NLP, literacy teachers in Alagoas who work in 1st grade classes may be recontextualizing the proposals of the policy in question, which deserves to be the subject of future studies.