POSSIBLE CAUSES OF READING PROBLEMS

Learning to read is influenced by different factors, such as learners understanding of enjoyment and purpose in reading, the skills and strategies learners have to be taught, parental and societal influences and the teacher‟s expertise and skills (Lewis and Ellis, 2006:2).

According to McGuinness (2005:215), the possible causes of barriers to reading might be the number of books in the home, a mother who did not teach her child the alphabet, low socio-economic status and the type of reading strategy the child has adopted. However, if the parent or teacher lacks the skill of teaching reading, this can sometimes do more harm to the child.

McGuinness (2005:217) further argues that incompetence in teaching the skill of reading can produce a very large number of children with severe reading problems. Furthermore, Richardson, Morgan and Fleener (2006:56) state that physical factors may cause difficulties in reading, for example poor vision, hearing or health problems at an early age.

Therefore, it is necessary to discuss the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that might possibly be the causes of reading problems.

3.3.1 INTRINSIC FACTORS (factors within the child)

According to McGuinness (2005:215), possible causes of reading problems can be visual memory, eye-movement control and severity of middle-ear infections. McGuinness (2005:228) further states that difficulties in hearing short auditory signals will have an impact on receptive language plus the assumption that poor auditory sensitivity will affect phoneme awareness, and in the end, the skill to read.

According to Carnine, Silbert, Kame‟enui, Tarver and Jungjohann (2006:6-7), a delay in learning to read can be the result of neurobiological factors that are genetically transmitted and constitutionally based. Children whose lack of preparation for learning to read is the result of genetic factors will need interventions in reading that are more clearly, comprehensive, intensive and supportive than children who can read successfully.

Intrinsic factors that cause reversals, inversions, insertions, word-by-word reading and incorrect phrasing will now be discussed.According to Ekwall and Shanker (1993:29), reversals or inversions may be caused when the learner is not totally focused on the context, or does not have a strong enough visual image of the word. Furthermore, the learner may have failed to develop a left-to-right eye movement or a left-to-right reading pattern. It was also pointed out, by Ekwall and Shanker that the learner may fail to realize that the position the letters appear makes a difference, or she or he may suffer from some neurological impairment.

Possible causes of insertions during oral reading might be that the learner may anticipate what is coming next and read that, instead of what is actually written in the text. Another reason can be that the learner may have poor efficiency skills or oral language development below the reading level (Ekwall and Shanker, 1993: 33).

Word-by-word reading can be cause by poor reading-efficiency skills, a lack of fluency, not being able to apply decoding skills effectively, or a failure to comprehend what is being read (Ekwall and Shanker, 1993:7). Linguistic, visual and auditory factors can contribute to reading difficulties. Each of these factors will now be discussed (Wearmouth, Soler and Reid, 2003:5).

3.3.1.2 Linguistic factors

Reading is expressed in language form, and this can present a difficulty for some children, break the words into smaller parts and articulating the sounds, forming the sounds holding these sounds in the memory. The flow of oral language does not always make the break between the words easier to hear; and they might also experience difficulty in recognising the sounds in written form (Wearmouth, Sole and Reid, 2003:5).

3.3.1.3 Auditory and Visual discrimination

Sometimes learners say the wrong look-alike word in a sentence. This might be because the learner has a visual discrimination problem and cannot distinguish the visual difference between one word and another (Duffy, 2009:223).

Auditory discrimination is a learner‟s ability to differentiate between sounds, including rhythm, volume and tone. Visual discrimination is a learner‟s ability to perceive similarities and differences in forms, letters and words. Some learners even experience auditory and visual discrimination problems in middle- and high-school, and this mean that these learners will experience difficulty in learning to read. If a non-reader is weak in these areas, they can be helped through games and activities. For example: The teacher can ask: Are the beginning, the middle or the end sounds of these two words, “march and catch” alike or different? “end” (Richardson, Morgan and Fleener, 2006:62).

3.3.1.4 Visual and Auditory factors

Children who are experiencing difficulty in recognising the visual cues of letters and words, left-right orientation, recognising word patterns and word shapes may experience reading barriers.

3.3.1.5 Auditory factors

Learners who get stuck at the alphabetical stage when reading, may make use of their auditory-based phonological skills to make words fit (Lewis and Ellis, 2006:81).

Auditory discrimination is a learner‟s ability to differentiate between, sounds including rhythm, volume and tone. Visual discrimination is a learner‟s ability to perceive similarities and differences in forms, letters and words.

Some learners even experience auditory and visual discrimination problems in middle- and high-school, and this can mean that these learners will experience difficulty in learning to read. Any difficulty that is experienced in the recognition of letter sounds, the sequencing of sounds, corresponding sounds to visual stimuli, discriminating sounds from other sounds and within words might experience a barrier in the acquisition of reading skills.