The Role of Using Illustrated Stories in Developing Reading Skills among Primary School Students with Dyslexia from the Perspectives of Teachers in East Jerusalem Schools

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of illustrated stories in developing reading skills of primary school dyslexic students from the perspectives of teachers in East Jerusalem schools. A quantitative descriptive survey design was used and data was gathered from a simple random sample of 234 primary school teachers from governmental and private schools. The study tool comprised 30 items categorized into 3 dimensions namely. The descriptive statistics showed that teachers' perceptions about the effectiveness of the illustrated stories were very positive (M = 4.10, Sd = 0.77). The most improved benefits were those of improved reading fluency, vocabulary development, student engagement in class and recall of story events. Teachers also indicated a high level of implementation of using illustrated stories (M = 4.10, SD = 0.76), such as encouraging students to predict story events based on the pictures, and often using an illustrated story in reading lessons. In contrast, teachers indicated moderate difficulties (M = 3.40, SD = 0.97), with the lack of parents' support, lack of curriculum emphasis, lack of adequate illustrated materials, and lack of professional development being the primary challenges.

The Pearson correlation analysis showed a positive, significant and strong relationship between teachers' instructional practices and the effectiveness of the illustrated stories (r = .742, p< .001), suggesting that the higher the level of effectiveness in teachers' instructional practices, the greater the teachers' perceptions of the educational value of the illustrated stories.  The results indicate that the use of illustrated stories as a multimodal instructional approach is an effective approach for enhancing primary school students with dyslexia's motivation in reading, vocabulary, comprehension, fluency, and participation....