2. The National Reading Plan: a comprehensive and
multifaceted programme
The National Reading Plan (NRP) was created in 2006. It is a
public policy initiative that aims to increase literacy levels and
reading habits among the Portuguese population. The NRP
comprises a set of measures designed to promote the development
of reading skills and habits, especially among school-age children
and young people, but also in families, local communities and the
general population.
The NRP is scheduled to last for ten years, split into two phases
of five years each. It comes under the responsibility of the Ministry
of Education, acting in articulation with other government
departments, namely Culture and Parliamentary Affairs, and
enjoys a broad cross-party consensus.
The NRP arose from the recognition of two issues, which had to
be addressed together. On the one hand, how fundamentally
important it is in today’s world to overcome Portuguese society’s
backwardness compared to the more developed countries in the
reading skills and habits domain (OECD, 2000–2011, 2001, 2004,
2007; OECD & Statistics Canada, 2000). On the other hand, the need
to address the new challenges of the information age related to the
emergence of reading in electronic formats and digital environments.
Reading skills and practices are becoming more complex
and linked to a wider range of formats, contexts and aims (Cassany,
2008).
The NRP is a very wide-ranging and multifaceted programme.
Evaluating a programme like this one poses a variety of challenges
that are essentially linked to its complexity on various levels: (a) it
is a national-scale programme that covers the whole country; (b) it
acts in different contexts, either more circumscribed, such as
schools, libraries and local communities, or more diffuse, such as
Portuguese society in general; (c) it is targeted at different
audiences, including school-age children and young people, adults,
families and the general population; (d) it is also targeted at a
plurality of social actors whose involvement is crucial for the
achievement of the Plan’s goals, such as teachers, librarians and
health professionals; (e) it encompasses a large number and
diversity of projects, with different degrees of coverage and
intensity, objectives, audiences and durations; (f) it is characterised
by a constant dynamism, in that it allies continuity through
its core projects with innovation and diversification, investing in
the development of new initiatives and projects that appeared in
phased way over the course of the first five years (2006–2011).
Like any other programme, the NRP’s action and results are
influenced by the surrounding context and the dynamics that cut
across it, as well as by other, simultaneous processes that are
linked to it (Davies, 2004; Moran, Rein, & Goodin, 2006; Pawson,
2002). What is more, some of the social processes in question
operate over long periods of time, and the evaluation of their
effects – or at least of some of them – is a correspondingly lengthy
task.
Table 1 lists the main projects and illustrates the scope and
breadth of the NRP. The Plan includes a vast set of projects with a
variety of contents, which are aimed at different target groups and
involve multiple social actors in their implementation.
The NRP seeks to respond to the objective of promoting reading
and developing literacy skills in both schools and families, as well
as in local communities and other social environments. Therefore,
the final target groups are the general population, and particularly
children and young persons who attend the various levels of
education and adults enrolled in education and training actions. At
another level, the Plan focuses on intermediate target groups, who
drive the NRP’s actions in the field, such as teachers, school
librarians, public librarians, adult-education professionals, health
professionals, the media and local community actors. The intended
impacts of the Plan include their involvement in reading
promotion activities and changes in their practices.
Promoting reading in school is the NRP’s priority area of action,
in line with studies that have shown that it is crucial to develop
reading practices, skills and habits, as well as the pleasure of
reading, at the younger ages (Kraaykamp, 2003; Rvachew & Savage,
2006). Guided reading in the classroom is the key and most
continuous activity of the NRP. It consists of setting aside a specific
time for reading in the classroom, during which the teacher
promotes direct contact between students and books. Guided