Διδασκαλία μαθητών με δυσλεξία στη Δευτεροβάθμια Εκπαίδευση: Απόψεις εκπαιδευτικών

Introduction: Throughout the past few years, numerous studies have concentrated on the knowledge of secondary school teachers regarding certain learning difficulties – such as dyslexia. These studies indicate that teachers do not, in fact, have sufficient knowledge about dyslexia as well as that are not properly trained to teach students with difficulties in reading and/or spelling. This study focuses solely on a specific learning difficulty-dyslexia that is, for the most part, related to literacy skills (e.g. reading, spelling).Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the knowledge of secondary education teachers within our country regarding dyslexia.Method: A non-experimental design to answer questions of this study was used. The set of questions was based on information from existing literature and was handed out to 70 teachers of several specialties through the internet. Data was analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics Software (version 25) for questions about the teachers’ profile (Questions 1-6) and questions that were about a teachers' knowledge, interventions, and confidence (Questions 7-17). In the matter of knowledge and misconceptions concerning dyslexia, the percentage results were calculated for individual questions and participators’ responses were coded as 0 for every incorrect answer and as 1 for every correct answer in order to measure each participant's general knowledge score using SPSS. The obtained data was encoded in nominal data and analyzed by using the construction of CrossTabs, so as to determine if there were elements thatcontributed to higher levels of confidence in teachers in teaching of dyslexic students. In this way, the relationship between the variables was closely inspected.Results: Analysis of the results showed that more than a bisection of Greek teachers (56.9%) believe that symptoms of dyslexia appearing during infancy (3-6 years), while only 37.7% opted for the ages from 7-9 years, where dyslexia becomes in fact evident as students come into contact with reading and writing. While a percentage (68.6%) of the participants were aware of the fact that dyslexia was more common in boys than in girls, 31.4% responded either incorrectly or declared that they did not know about the sex proportion. Additionally, 71.4% of secondary teachers thought it likely that dyslexia is actually not inherited, while almost half of them (52.9%) knew that dyslexia manages to exist in every part of the spectrum of mental capabilities. The remaining percentage (47.1%) either stated that they did not know or falsely claimed that students with dyslexia had higher intelligence. On top of that, the big majority of responders (97.1%) believed that difficulty in spelling and reading are in fact symptoms of dyslexia, while a very tiny percentage (2.9%) mistakenly stated that low intelligence and visual impairments are legitimate symptoms of dyslexia. At a rate of (77.1%), those participants correctly replied that dyslexia happens to be, indeed, a lifelong condition, while the percentage of 22.9% represent those who answered falsely. Moreover, the majority of respondents (94.3%) knew that dyslexia does co-exist with other difficulties. Most of them (64.3%) supported that they only have a brief knowledge of dyslexia, while others (21.4%) answered that they have very limited knowledge, and ultimately with 14.3% of them answered that they have a quite great knowledge concerning dyslexia. The majority of teachers (60%) answered that they felt that they are relatively ready to teach students with dyslexia, very small percentage (5.7%) of them answered that they do not feel the slightest confidence when it comes to teaching kids with said disorder. Ultimately, the majority (81.4%) of teachers use different interventions and various strategies in the class so as to help students that have dyslexia, as well as the majority of teachers (51.4%) answered that the methods or intervention programs they use can be extremely effective and helpful. A minority of participants (1.4%) support that their methods are, in fact, not effective at all.Discussion: The present study shows that the comprehension of dyslexia by teachers in Greece does vary significantly, as there are a lot of gaps, and misinterpretations regarding their knowledge about dyslexia. The results also showed that teachers are not properly trained about the application of creative methods and/or intervention programs for a more effective educational program for students with dyslexia.