Etiology and Manifestation of Dyslexia among Grade Six Pupils in Eastern Zambia

Abstract

The terms dyslexia and reading disability are often used interchangeably. There are so many children who encounter reading problems in Zambia to an extent that some of them might complete seven years of primary education without the ability to read even a three letter word (MoE, 1992).A study conducted in Zambia by MatafWali (2005) revealed that, 49.1% of the grade three pupils could not read words at all. In addition, 57.5% could not read any single sentence. According to Kelly (2000), the reading level in some grade six pupils fell within the level expected of grade four. Therefore, it means that teachers who teach reading to dyslexic pupils face a lot of challenges. It is a well documented factor that-, in the western world, reading disabilities play a major role amongst children who drop out of school and/or become delinquent (Zieman, 1999). In addition, it is important to know the factors which cause dyslexia so as to remediate the problem. The objective of the present study was to identify reading disabilities among grade six pupils and challenges that teachers face in teaching reading to these pupils. Informed consent was obtained from the respondents and then questionnaires were administered to those who agreed to participate in the study. Simple random sampling was used to come up with the required number of pupils using the class registers. Teachers were given questionnaires to answer on their own after they had understood the instructions. For the pupils, questionnaires had to be answered on a one-to-one basis with the researcher. The research design of this study was a quasi experimental design. A total of one hundred and ninety two (192) pupils and fourteen (14) teachers drawn from two districts in eastern Zambia were enrolled in the study. Results show that there was a moderate effect of lighting system at home and one's reading ability (F (10, 154) — 3.188, p < .05, partial = 9.4). As such, the nature of lighting system at home does not really affect