Writing and reading are not birth given skills and therefore teaching must be explicit. Dyslexia is a type of learning difficulty that influences one’s ability to read. According to the International Dyslexia Association (2002), dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty, with a neurobiological origin characterized with difficulties that occur in the accurate and fluent recognition of words, which are manifested by spelling problems and problems with the abilities for decoding. Also, dyslexia is the most common learning disability (Rief&Stern, p. 3). According to this, teachers all around the world face students with such problems in their classrooms every day. Having in mind that reading and writing are extremely important for success in and out of school, dyslexic students face the risk of academic failure, and a lower reading efficiency and self-correction (Burden, 2008), as well as a lower self-esteem (Alexander-Passe, 2006). 5-10% of all school children have dyslexia (Roongpraiwan et al., 2002; Brown et al., 2001).In North Macedonia there are no precise statistics regarding this issue, but according to the analysis of the Association for dyslexia Einstein, there are approximately 12.6% dyslexic high school students. Anyhow, due to the lack of information and proper training, persons with dyslexia are not recognized by the environment, ie by parents, teachers, professors, employers etc. It is not uncommon for teachers to label such students as lazy or immature. Even when recognized, teachers are unable to help them without proper evidence based teaching strategies or methods. It is evident that there is a need for active education and upgrading of professional knowledge of teachers regarding dyslexia. This is the reason why we need to utilize all the available technology and create tools which are accessible to all. Also, in order for the first principle of the European Pillar of social rights to be met, regarding everyone’s right to quality and inclusive education, teachers need to gain the expertize for dealing with dyslexic students and facilitate their schooling so that they would be able to fully participate in the society one day. In that direction, the main objective of the DYSCOURSE project is creation of an on-line platform that will contain courses and various dyslexia working strategies and methods. These instruments will be developed within this project in the form of intellectual outputs by young adults (students in the field of Special Education and Rehabilitation). The content from the platform will be the basis on which an app will be created. Through this app, parents, caregivers, pedagogues, special educators as well as other students (within the dyslexia course practicum) can monitor the development of reading and subsequently writing of each child. These changes in practice will eminently lead to a change in theory. Hence this project predicts upgrade of the university curricula in the area of Specific Learning Difficulties (Dyslexia). Other objectives of the project include: • Development of OER for teachers for online training course for teaching students with dyslexia. • Creation of a mobile app for easy platform access. • Enabling access to the platform and app to parents, caregivers and professionals in the area of disability. • Improving the level of key competences and skills in professionals in the disability area. • Foster quality improvements and excellence in innovation and exchange of good practices at the inclusive educational institution level through enhanced transnational cooperation between education and training providers and other stakeholders. • Promote and strengthen knowledge and acceptance of diversity in society. Project target group are teachers in inclusive schools. These are the adults that are directly involved in the education of dyslexic children and need most support and dyslexia training. Anyway, the platform would be of use to any adults that get in touch with the child who has dyslexia (parents, special educators etc.). Due to the fact that 5-10% of all school children are dyslexic, the platform and the app can provide easy and quick access to methods and strategies to teachers from many different countries. First of all, the DYSCOURSE Project will enable exchange of the best practices currently existent in the project partners’ countries so that the most relevant one will find there place on the dyslexia platform. After the exchange between the partners, all of the platform materials (tools) will be available all over Europe and shared on the Internet platforms for didactic materials (EPALE, School gateway, e-twinning etc.).
The main objective of the DYSCOURSE project was the creation of an online platform that contains courses for dyslexia with various working strategies and methods. Other objectives of the project were: • Development of curricula for online courses with strategies and working methods for children with dyslexia. • Development of OER for teachers for an online training course for teaching students with dyslexia. • Creation of a mobile app for easy platform access. • Enabling access to the platform and app to parents, caregivers, and professionals in the area of disability. • Improving the level of key competencies and skills in professionals in the disability area. • Foster quality improvements and excellence in innovation and exchange of good practices at the inclusive educational institution level through enhanced transnational cooperation between education and training providers and other stakeholders. • Promote and strengthen knowledge and acceptance of diversity in society
Dyslexia is a type of learning difficulty that influences one’s ability to read and it is the most common learning disability in the world. According to this, teachers all around the world work with students with such problems in their classrooms every day. Having in mind that reading and writing are extremely important for the success in and out of school, dyslexic students face the risk of academic failure, lower reading efficiency, and self-correction, as well as lower self-esteem. According to the analysis of the Association for dyslexia Einstein, there are approximately 12.6% dyslexic high school students. Due to the lack of information and proper training, persons with dyslexia are not recognized by the environment, ie by parents, teachers, professors, employers etc. It is not uncommon for teachers to label such students as lazy or immature. Even when recognized, teachers are unable to help them without proper evidence-based teaching strategies or methods. It is evident that there is a need for active education and upgrading of professional knowledge of teachers regarding dyslexia. This was the main reason why we have applied for this project, to make changes in the educational systems for students who are facing dyslexia.