Международный научно-образовательный электронный журнал «образование и наука в XXI веке». Выпуск №25 (том 2)

Learners with reading difficulties 

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The oxford dictionary explains the word ―learner‖ to be a person who is learning 
to do something. In the context of this study, learner refers to school beginners and children 
between the ages of 6-12 at primary school level. According to the world book encyclopedia 
(1994), ―reading‖ is an act or process of getting the meaning of written or printed words 
and the word ―difficulty‖ as a thing that is hard to do or understand and ―reading 
difficulties‖ refers to problems associated with reading which can either be the mechanical 
skill of the reading process or the comprehension of what is being read. In this study, 
learners experiencing reading difficulties are those who are not reading at the required or 
expected levels for their chronological age, and those who often fall behind their peers in 
terms of reading requirements and expectations.
Teaching reading 
A contentious issue regarding approaches for teaching reading involves the 
controversy between the whole language reading instruction (also known as the literature-
based instruction) and skills based reading instruction that includes phonics. The underlying 
philosophy of the whole language reading instruction approach was that learners should 
learn to read in the same way they learned to talk and that by being involved in numerous 
books and stories and having many experiences listening to stories, they can learn to read 
in a natural way whereas skills –based reading instruction requires learners to recognize 
words and, that words are made of speech sounds (phonics that refers to the relationship 
between printed letters and sounds). Phonics involves learning the correspondence of 
language sounds to written letters and applying that knowledge in recognizing words and 
reading. Learning word recognition skills early, lead to wider reading abilities in school and 
out of school. Learners who are taught phonics directly and systematically in the early 
grades, receives higher scores on reading achievement than learners who do not receive this 
instruction.
Reading level 
According to Shanker & Cockrum (2009:2), all learners should be taught, and 
should practice, reading at an appropriate level of difficulty so that they can experience 
frequent success and that, all too often, learners are expected to read material that is much 
too difficult for them and from these experiences they learn only frustrations instead of 

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learning how to read successfully. Lapp et al in Nel, Nel & Hugo (2012:101), state that a 
number and types of errors a learner makes during oral reading, is an indication of the 
learner‘s reading level and that learners come to class with different levels of readiness, 
interest and learning profiles and for educators to improve the learner‘s reading levels, the 
reading material need to suit the learner‘s reading level.