A LOOK AT DYSLEXIA IN READING AND WRITING

Abstract

School is the environment responsible for developing and ensuring the learning and acquisition of reading and writing skills. It is in this environment that the emergence of some specific reading and writing disorders is observed, consequently impacting the learning of the students in question. Dyslexia is a learning disorder directly related to cognitive development, therefore, connected to the student's ability to develop the skills and competencies necessary for reading and writing. Thus, this research addressed the topic of dyslexia, characterized by difficulties in letter recognition, spelling, and word decoding, compromising the performance and hindering the learning of students with the disorder, as well as the performance of teachers in response to the needs presented by the student. According to Teles (2004, p. 713), "knowing how to read is one of the most important learning experiences because it is the key that allows access to all other knowledge." Learning to read, though complex, is an easy task for many. However, some people, even with average or higher intelligence, experience learning difficulties. "Until a few years ago, the origin of this difficulty was unknown; it was an invisible inability, a mystery, which generated myths and prejudices, stigmatizing children, young people, and adults who were unable to overcome it" (p. 713). The act of reading requires the reader to relate the sounds of phonemes to the visual symbols, graphemes, used to represent them. This is a skill required during learning to read and also when new words and pseudowords emerge (DEUSCHLE; CECHELLA, 2009). Therefore, "[...] the way children with learning disabilities process and acquire information is different from the typical functioning of children without learning difficulties during the school learning phase" (SILVA; CAPELLINI, 2011, p. 132), consequently demonstrating difficulties in areas requiring decoding and word identification. Considering that students may have learning difficulties during the initial phase of school life, Evans (2006), supported by Davis (2004) and Mc Cabe (2002), presents data that approximately 90% of children attending basic education have some type of learning difficulty related to language, such as dyslexia, the central axis of this work. Affonso et al. (2011) further corroborates that in Brazil, approximately 30% to 40% of children in the initial grades manifest some scholastic difficulty, of which 3% to 5% manifest learning disorders, of which the most common disorder is dyslexia, also known as specific reading disorder. In Libâneo (2007), he reports that the school needs to exempt itself from being an agent transmitting knowledge and information, placing the entire obligation of transmitting this curriculum onto educators, who observe the teaching process in isolation. We hear a lot about learning difficulties and their variations, which lead to diverse behaviors that diverge and lead to student failure. Initially, teachers identify learning difficulties by attributing various potential causes. However, the challenge of learning for many students cannot be attributed to learning disabilities; there are certainly different ways to learn, and each student possesses unique abilities. However, it is in the school environment that we strive for everyone to learn equally, as many teachers teach from the same perspective, using the same medium, thus identifying the underlying cause of learning failure. According to Patto (1996), overcoming school failure requires recognizing the complexity of this phenomenon, considering the multiple aspects that determine it: the school institution as it is organized, the policies, the socio-historical context, the social condition, and the ideologies underpinning educational practice. Through a bibliographical survey, he presented the causes, characteristics, ways to recognize the disorder and conduct the teaching-learning process, identifying teaching strategies, the importance of diagnosis at the beginning of the literacy process, for the development of pedagogical work, family interaction and support, teacher training, and proposed interventions.