to Learners with Special Educational Needs

Pokrivčáková, S. et al. (2015). Teaching Foreign Languages to Learners with Special Educational Needs:
e-textbook for foreign language teachers. Nitra: Constantine the Philosopher University. 128 p.
ISBN 978-80-558-0941-0
It must be mentioned that there are scholars, on the other hand, who claim that reading
comics is not appropriate genre for dyslexics as text in the bubbles might be problematic (see
e.g. Homolová, 2012).
If you want to apply extensive reading, you may use special edition of books prepared for
students with dyslexia (e.g. the special editions - quick reads, see
http://www.quickreads.org.uk/resources – it is necessary to mention that these editions are for
native speakers. The books are supplemented with the Learning with Quick Reads
methodological support downloadable from their website. As far as we know there are no
special graded readers for EFL dyslexic learners. Still, the teachers might selectively use the
above mentioned readers.
Similarly, the use of graphic novels allows pupils to be creative readers. Even though there is
a little or no text, actually the kids read the pictures and read/create the story and at the same
time they develop the habit of reading and later, when they learn some compensation
techniques they are motivated to overcome linguistic barriers as they have experience the joy of
reading. The samples below are from Shaun Tan’s social novel The Arrival and Raymond Briggs
story for children Snowman.
Figure 7: Sample pages from the graphic books. (Graphic novel: Shaun Tan: The Arrival – the
social graphic novel about migration; Raymond Briggs: The Snowman – the book about
snowman and a boy friendship; The Briggs’ book evokes the blueish feelings (he uses colours but
the blue one prevails) whereas Tan works with grey and sepia shadows that evokes the feelings
of old photographs that create a story.)
Comics similarly do not provide much language, and they tell a story. This is a format that can
provide access to narratives for dyslexics. You may for example read Tom Sawyer and
Huckleberry Finn graded reader with a group and use comics. You may delete the bubbles and
students can add the text. If you want you may use software to create the comics (based on whar
students read), as e.g. makebeliefscomix.com or toondoo.com.
You may also use audio books depending on your aim – but definitely this is a way how to
help learners with dyslexia. There are a lot of graded readers that are accompanied with the
audio CD. Similarly, there are a lot of material online.
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