This dissertation seeks to identify teachers' perspectives and practices which play a role in the literacy process. The qualitative method was used in the examination of four first-grade classes in a school serving a slum population in Porto Alegre, Brazil. / The concepts "classification" and "frame" of educational knowledge (Bernstein, 1975), the "process of social stratification" in the classroom (Sharp and Green, 1975), and the "we-they-relationships" (Schutz, 1971) are used in the analysis. Participant and non-participant observations demonstrated the presence of political, economic extra-school factors which interfered with effective teaching. Nevertheless, pupils with a long career in the first grade as well as first-time students became literate during 180 school days. / Factors influencing the success of literacy teaching were: (a) the teachers' competence; (b) their belief in education as essential to the improvement of the standard of living of slum-dwellers; (c) the establishment of a "we-relationship" where the teachers assume responsibility for the learning of each pupil and reject the rigid categorization of scholastic failure.

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