Navigating Dyslexia in Iraqi EFL Classrooms: Didactic Challenges and Instructional Insights
Abstract
Dyslexia is a complex language-based learning disorder that primarily affects reading but also has serious implications for spelling, writing, and comprehension. In higher education contexts, particularly where English is taught as a foreign language, the condition poses double challenges: students must cope not only with the cognitive load of a second orthography but also with hidden processing difficulties that remain undiagnosed. In Iraq, awareness of dyslexia is still limited, and few empirical studies have examined how it manifests in university classrooms or how it affects the acquisition of English. This study explores dyslexia among Iraqi undergraduates in Najaf, with a focus on its impact on reading fluency, spelling consistency, and grammar performance. A quasi- experimental design was adopted with fifty fourth-year English majors enrolled in the Faculty of Education for Women at University of Kufa. Data were gathered through a twenty-three–item dyslexia questionnaire adapted from the Davis Dyslexia Association International rubric and validated by three experts, alongside targeted classroom tasks in grammar areas such as conditionals and relative clauses. The results revealed that a notable number of students demonstrated dyslexia-related behaviors, including slow and effortful decoding, frequent rereading without full comprehension, inconsistent orthographic patterns in writing, overreliance on visual or hands-on strategies, and a tendency to make more errors under stress or time constraints. Importantly, none of these students had been officially identified as dyslexic before this study, highlighting the invisibility of the problem in Iraqi higher education. The study concludes that dyslexia exists in Iraqi EFL contexts and urges teacher training, multimodal instruction, and institutional support to ensure equity and academic success.
identified as dyslexic before this study, highlighting the invisibility of the problem in Iraqi higher education. The study concludes that dyslexia exists in Iraqi EFL contexts and urges teacher training, multimodal instruction, and institutional support to ensure equity and academic success.
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