Determining the Opinions of Special Education Teachers Regarding the Use of Assistive Technologies for Overcoming Reading Difficulties

Mukaddes Sakalli Demirok,Aliya A Yergazina,Elena L Ryazanova,Nuket Gunduz,Zhumagul A Maydangalieva

doi:10.3991/ijet.v14i22.11761

Abstract

Reading is one of the basic skills that the students’ need to achieve, however, it is also one of the important competencies that is essential for reaching knowledge. Reading difficulty is a main problem that many teachers are coming across in their classrooms. Students’ with reading disabilities not only hinder the teachers’ flow of the lesson it also hinders the development of the students life skills. With the revolution of the technology in the 21ST century, assistive technologies are seen to be applied into the education settings at all levels and in all fields. Therefore, teachers are in need to know about the available technology and special technology programs in order to help their students facing difficulties in acquiring the necessary knowledge and skills. Technological enrichment of teachers' educational environment both facilitates and helps them to motivate students more easily. Technology support into the educational environments of the students with reading difficulties can improve their reading skills and enable them to succeed in reading and comprehending. The present study sought to determine the opinions of special education teachers’ regarding using assistive technology for students with reading difficulties. The research design is based on the qualitative case study design with purposeful sampling and easily accessible sampling technique. Researchers developed semi-structured interview form for data collection applied content analysis to analyze the collected data. The analysis of the study found that teacher opinions towards assistive technology usage for overcoming students’ reading difficulties are rather moderate. However, teachers’ general opinions about assistive technology utilization is promising and developing gradually.

Highlights

Reading skill achievement is essential and an important competency necessary for knowledge building
As it can be seen from the above table, 10 teachers stated that they use various assistive technologies; computer and tablet usage are more frequently used
Three teachers stated that they used a highlighter to develop students reading skills

Summary

Introduction

Reading skill achievement is essential and an important competency necessary for knowledge building. There is a consensus that acquiring language is a natural inclination that starts in child’s early developmental stage. Language is attributed to culture experiences, biological basis and multi environment with the debate that children can recognize their native language intonation before birth [1] [2].Learning in a playful manner can enable children to be conscious of speech sounds and develop language consciousness paving the way to be proficient in reading [3] [4]. Developing reading for children at risk formalized methodology and usually explicit phonological training is applied. 815 studies in the International Journal of Inclusive Education reveal that children with satisfactory decoding proficiency still fail to understand what they read [7]. Teachers’ knowledge of child’s development and how their thinking is demonstrated regarding language is crucial for necessary intervention and individual educational programmes (IEPs)

Methods

Results

Conclusion