Reading Literacy of Students with Intellectual Disabilities at the End of the Systematic Literacy Development Period

Abstract

Developing reading literacy of students with mild intellectual disabilities (hereinafter ID) is one of the more challenging educational issues. These students are usually enrolled in an adapted program with lower educational standards (hereinafter AP LES), which predicts that by the end of the literacy development period the students will have mastered reading techniques to the point of being able to focus primarily on developing reading comprehension. Throughout this research, we were interested in finding out the degree to which this goal was fulfilled in a group of 61 fifth grade students with ID, enrolled in AP LES, at the end of the systematic literacy development period. Using factor analysis, we studied the characteristics of reading literacy in this group of students. Additionally, we compared the results of students with ID with the norms created for students of typical development at the end of their literacy development period (third grade). We can conclude that reading efficiency of students with ID at the end of the literacy development period is still based on lower level processes (decoding). Reading issues of students with ID are complex in nature and apply to various factors of reading literacy. Taking the students’ oral reading accuracy into account, we can reach a conclusion that only a smaller percentage of students is capable of reaching the fundamental goal of reading lessons in the given amount of time. Based on our results we will be able to give suggestions on how to plan future reading lessons in AP LES.

Razvoj čitanja kod učenika s lakom intelektualnom ometenošću (IO) predstavlja veliki izazov za njihove nastavnike. U Sloveniji ovi učenici obično pohađaju prilagođeni nastavni program sa nižim obrazovnim standardima, koji predviđa da će učenici do kraja perioda sistematskog podučavanja čitanja savladati tehniku čitanja do nivoa, koji će im omogućiti da se primarno fokusiraju na razumevanje teksta. Cilj istraživanja bio je utvrđivanje u kojoj meri je taj cilj ispunjen u grupi od 61 učenika petog razreda, koji pohađaju prilagođeni program sa nižim obrazovnim standardima, na kraju perioda sistematskog razvoja pismenosti. Pomoću faktorske analize proučavali smo karakteristike čitalačke pismenosti kod ove grupe učenika. Pored toga, uporedili smo rezultate učenika s IO sa normama na kraju perioda sistematskog razvoja pismenosti učenika tipičnog razvoja (treći razred). Zaključeno je, da se efikasnost čitanja učenika s lakom IO na kraju perioda sistematskog razvoja pismenosti i dalje zasniva na procesima nižeg nivoa (dekodiranje). Teškoće u čitanju učenika s IO su složene i posledica su različitih faktora čitanja. Uzimajući u obzir tačnost usmenog čitanja učenika, zaključeno je, da samo manji procenat učenika postigne očekivani kurikularni standard čitanja. Na osnovu rezultata dato je nekoliko metodičkih i drugih smernica za planiranje nastave čitanja.