IMPACT OF STRATEGIC INTERVENTION ON THE LEARNERS: A STUDY FOR OVERCOMING DYSLECIA AND DYSGRAPHIA

Abstract

Education for All, DPEP, Sarva Sikshya Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhaymik Sikhsha Abhiyaan (RAMSA) have been launched by the Government of India to bring all category of children to the fold of education within the age group of 6-14 (Elementary). Here, all children mean SC, ST, girls, differently able children and marginalized children irrespective of caste, creed and gender. The National Policy of Education (NPE) 1986, Programme of Action (POA) 1992, in its document laid emphasis on the education of the children of focused group who need to be brought to the mainstream. A diagnostic test was conducted to the children of a school studying in class VII. The researcher identified language problems of some children and discussed with the Headmaster and the language teacher to provide some remedial activities for them. Accordingly it was decided to take up a study on “Improving the reading and writing skills of the students with learning disabilities of class VII in English”. The objectives of the study were (i) to identify the problems of the learners in respect of reading and writing. (ii) to extend strategic intervention using a specially designed package to help the learners to overcome the problems. (iii) To study the effects of the intervention on developing reading and writing skills of the students. The researcher selected 20 children from upper primary school of class VII having both reading and writing problems through diagnostic test. After identification of those children, the researcher felt the need of developing a package and planned for Individual Education Programme (IEP) adopting cooperative learning strategies like ‘Think, Pair and Share’ (TPS), ‘Pair, Think and Share’ (PTS) and ‘Group Think and Share’ (GTS). Scheduled activities like listen to yourself, guess and tell exercise, recite a rhyme, pay attention to intonation and stress, mark the silent letters during pronunciation, mark the words with similar sound etc. Students were supplied with worksheets to do the written assignments which were corrected by peers in presence of the subject teacher. The teacher made necessary corrections. The activities continued for one month and assessment was done in respect of reading problems (dyslexia) and writing problems (dysgraphia). It was found that in case of pronunciation rate of elimination was 25%. So far as oral reading and reading comprehension are concerned the mean score at the pre-test was 8.0 and at the post-test, it was 10.0. So far as spelling is concerned, the mean score at the pre-test was 8.0 and at the post-test it was 18.0 which were found significant at 0.01 levels. Thus the intervention proved effective.