This text presents the difficulties encountered by students and teachers in the classroom in the teaching of the Portuguese Language. To that end, we asked: What difficulties did teachers and their students face in the initial years of elementary school in a municipality in Sergipe, in the process of teaching and learning in Portuguese? We conducted a qualitative research, through semi-structured interviews, with study counselors and literacy teachers of a municipality, during some formations that occurred in 2015. Literacy is the most important moment in the school life of a child, since it is when one can create the taste and / or dislike for reading. In this way, it is the learning of practices, uses and functions of reading and writing.