Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 9 Mar 2000

Vol. 516 No. 2

Written Answers. - Special Educational Needs.

Jan O'Sullivan

Question:

30 Ms O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Education and Science if the pupil profiles to be carried out under the Drumcondra English profiles will register or be used to monitor educational special needs such as dyslexia. [7129/00]

Minister for Education and Science (Dr. Woods)

The Drumcondra English profiles are designed to be used by teachers in profiling the progress of all pupils in their classes. Their primary purpose is to provide overall indices of a pupil's achievement in oral language, reading and writing at or near the end of the school year. It is hoped that this information will be used for record keeping, and for communicating with other teachers and with parents. A secondary purpose is to provide teachers with information that can guide planning and teaching throughout the school year.

The profiles are compiled from the informal assessments made by the teacher of each pupil's mastery of key objectives of the English curriculum and from the results of formal tests, including standardised tests.

The profiles were not designed to monitor or diagnose special educational needs such as dyslexia. However, specific suggestions are given in regard to assessment activities in oral language, reading and writing which support the implementation of the English profiles. Important early skills in the area of reading, for example, are identified for teachers and suggestions are made in regard to appropriate assessment activities to detect a pupil's progress in areas such as emergent literacy, phonemic awareness and word identification. Serious delays or lack of progress in these areas in the case of particular pupils are generally good indicators of literacy difficulties, including dyslexia.

Pat Rabbitte

Question:

31 Mr. Rabbitte asked the Minister for Education and Science the number of primary pupils who complete the primary cycle with substantial literacy difficulties; and the number of these pupils who have special needs, such as dyslexia. [7130/00]

Minister for Education and Science (Dr. Woods)

In 1993 and again in 1998 the Educational Research Centre, Drumcondra, in conjunction with the Inspectorate of my Department conducted a national English reading survey of pupils in fifth class. Three domains of literacy were tested – narrative, expository and documents. Scores were identical, or almost so, for each domain and for the total in the two surveys.

The percentages of pupils scoring two or more standard deviations below the mean is often taken as an indicator of a very serious level of difficulty. Approximately 2% of pupils scored at this level in both surveys.

Teachers were asked to estimate the percentage of their pupils in fifth class who performed at a level appropriate to third class or lower or who were, in their opinion, weak-inadequate readers. Teachers rated approximately 10% of their pupils in this category. This can be taken as a reliable estimate of the number of pupils who complete the primary cycle with substantial literacy difficulties.

Some pupils within this category can be assumed to have a specific reading difficulty, or dyslexia. It is estimated about 2% of pupils have such a difficulty.