University of the Peloponnese

Department of Social and Education policy

Educational Programs and Materials

Master Thesis
A
Case study
Of
Dyslexic students and the FCE B2 Certificate

Supervisor
Prof. Athanassios Katsis

Helen Gerondakou

A.M 3032201501109

Corinth, January 2020

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“It is written that a fair test is one in which the ability being tested is the primary focus and
where all irrelevant barriers to candidate performance have been removed. “

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Contents
Keywords ................................................................................................................................... 4
Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... 5
Acknoledgements ...................................................................................................................... 6
Dedication .................................................................................................................................. 7
Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 8
Chapter 1 ................................................................................................................................. 10
1.1 Definition of dyslexia ......................................................................................................... 10
1.2 Causes and symptoms of dyslexia ..................................................................................... 12
1.3 Difficulties and problems of a student with dyslexia ........................................................ 15
Chapter 2 : Examination-Framework by the Ministry of Education for Dyslexic students ..... 22
2.1School level ........................................................................................................................ 22
2.2 Exam level .......................................................................................................................... 23
2.3 University studies .............................................................................................................. 24
Chapter 3 ................................................................................................................................. 36
3.1 FCE CAMBRIDGE B2 Certification and Examination Framework ....................................... 36
Chapter 4 ................................................................................................................................. 40
4.1 Methodology : Case study ................................................................................................ 40
Chapter 5 : Thoughts ............................................................................................................... 41
5.1 The importance of an English language Certificate .......................................................... 41
5.2 English language Certificate .............................................................................................. 41
5.3 Consideration ..................................................................................................................... 42
Chapter 6 : Problem statement .............................................................................................. 43
6.1 Results ............................................................................................................................... 43
Chapter 7 : The case ................................................................................................................ 44
7.1 Sample – Participnats ........................................................................................................ 44
7.2 Reasons of this research ................................................................................................... 44
7.3 Material ............................................................................................................................. 45

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7.4 Setting ............................................................................................................................... 46
7.5 Case study ........................................................................................................................ 46
7.6 Strenghts of the case study ............................................................................................... 46
7.7 Limitations of the case study ............................................................................................ 46
Chapter 8 : Reading and Use of English : Test 1....................................................................... 47
8.1 Test 2 .................................................................................................................................. 47
8.2 Test 3 ................................................................................................................................. 48
8.3 Listening :Test 1 ................................................................................................................ 48
8.4 Test 2 ................................................................................................................................. 49
8.5 Test 3 ................................................................................................................................. 49
8.6 Analysis: Reading and Use of English ............................................................................. 52
8.7 Listening section : Analysis ............................................................................................... 53
Chapter 9 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 54
Chapter 10 Suggestions .......................................................................................................... 55
Chapter 11 References ............................................................................................................ 56
Chapter 12 Appendix ............................................................................................................... 63

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Key words

English language, dyslexia, certification, FCE b2 Cambridge, examination, foreigh language

assessment, dyslexic students, educational policies, evaluation, academic performance,
fairness, equality, social justice, equity

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Abstract

In this thesis it is investigated how students with Dyslexia perform while taking an FCE B2
examination. This study is based on three mock (FCE b2) tests for the first certificate which
took place in December, February and April 2017. The sample of the study were twenty-four
pupils among them were six dyslexic students. The setting was in a private middle school in
Athens. The tests were given to the students before their real participation for the Cambridge
FCE B2 First Certificate for schools. The aim was to identify whether students with Dyslexia
could succeed the FCE B2 exams and in sequence which parts were challenging and might
resulted to a failure and how fairly are they assessed when evaluated by a standardized test
which is tip tailored for students who do not have any educational difficulties. It is found that
although dyslexic students (KEDDY) were trained and supported in the same educational
manner with the rest of the class they failed to pass the exams due to their demanding nature
which is in contrast with their educational difficulties. The students with dyslexia were given
an extra time limit (25 %) which is the accommodation provided to dyslexic students by the
Cambridge Assessment English. This study hopes to contribute to the field of Educational,
Social policies and Assessment for dyslexic students and suggests a need for more studies on
how dyslexic students should be assessed in a foreign/second language or the creation of
another type of evaluation that respects their needs. This study was inspired by all students
diagnosed with dyslexia who strive to succeed in language certification tests for a better
academic future.

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Acknowledgments

This thesis could not have been completed without the help and understanding shown by
Professor Katsis, my supervisor and rector of the University of Peloponnese.
I firstly, like to thank my family, namely Evita, Sarandos and Chara for being my strength
pylons, standing by my side when things got rough and have lost heart.
Secondly, to thank all of my friends for their encouragement and help, especially Dimitris
Apostolakos,GiouliPapa, Valantis Spanias, An.Kan., Dimitris Raftopoulos and Vasiliki Micha.
Last but not least, I would like to thank Mrs. Nancy Lazou, dear colleague and head of the
foreign language department of Platon IB school.
Above all, I most importantly wish to thank all the students who inspired me, this study would
not have been accomplished without them.

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Dedication

This thesis is dedicated to my life partner Panagiotis Manis.

To this wonderful man, I owe this dream come true for he was the one to believe, support and
guard me from the start of this journey.
Although, he is not among us anymore never will he leave our hearts and mind.

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 1. Introduction

The last twenty years, Dyslexia has been in the spotlight and research has shed light on the
difficulties that dyslexic students face during their school years. However, studies have been
specified upon students having educational difficulties in their first language, mother tongue,
whereas little research has been done on the difficulties that occur when dyslexic students learn
a foreign language and most importantly on how well they perform while being assessed for a
language qualification. The foreign language assessment tests are standardized created to serve
all students, and prove one’s language proficiency. The majority of the candidates are students
who are trained from an early young age to sit for the exams, or adults who did not have the
chance while in school and need the certification for a better work replacement or for personal
growth.
This thesis mainly focuses on students with dyslexia and the way they are assessed for an
English language certificate because it holds a great sociolinguistic interest that students who
were diagnosed having dyslexia by the Greek public sector (KEDDY) are evaluated in the same
way with candidates who do not have any educational difficulties. In the meantime, test
designers and language institutions comment on supporting and respecting students’ diversity
while their tests are made to assess a mass of students addressing all candidates in the same
manner.
It cannot be denied that nowadays in a fast-growing multilingual world, what is learnt should
also be proved, citizens have the chance and freedom to choose multiple educational
institutions, attend programs, change work fields and life path, explore multiple academic
identities and exchange ideas. In a lifelong learning world it is essential for people when they
have the ability to communicate in a common universal language recognized as a de facto
lingua franca which is the English language , to be able to certificate this knowledge by
earning a certificate which will provide them accessibility to Educational Institutions or
working fields in case of studying aboard or having the chance for a better work position.
There is a large variety of language tests which prove the Proficiency of the English language,
depending the usage and the orientation. These tests are taken in over 3.000 test centers in 20
countries, including universities and private language schools. They are designed to address a
massive number of population and in the case of students with dyslexia varied
accommodations are promised to be provided through the exams although after request only a
25 % present of extra time is given to these students.
On the one hand, during their school years, Dyslexic students while sitting in school exams are
supported with accommodations such as the use of extra time, a teacher who explains, clarifies
and simplifies written directions, the use of a glossary , individualized formation of tests and
orally tested .On the other hand ,when the time comes for dyslexic students to participate in an
English language certification exam, the whole evaluating process changes and they are

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assessed by standardized tests with time limits and demanding tasks. The only accommodation
provided by the Cambridge Assessment for the students sitting for the FCE B2 qualification is
a 25 % extra time and they are not allowed to use any other accommodation.
Standardized language tests like the one mentioned above , follow a standard policy that assess
all students in a same way , somebody might object that students with dyslexia should not be
categorized due to their educational needs but tests do categorize and do classify students of
all ages and backgrounds and moreover, when these students have the same capabilities a test
can be defined as fair, but when they do not have the same abilities it can be defined as unethical
and in this case, it is worth investigating whether Dyslexic students are able to overcome
already designed educational barriers and succeed in this testing.
Thoughts like, are these students fairly assessed based on their needs while participating in an
English language certification test? Can they pass the exam when they are evaluated under
these circumstances?
This study aims to answer these quarries and sensitize test designers and educational
institutions as to provide the right testing context for dyslexic students based on equality and
fairness.

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Chapter 1

1.1. Definition of dyslexia

According to Porpodas (1997), dyslexia is used to indicate learning difficulties in reading and
spelling which are not associated with mental or organic deficits but are specific and
predetermined organically. Eventually many children with dyslexia will learn to read and write
but their performance will be lower than the one expected for their age and intelligence
quotient. Dyslexia was studied and discovered by medicine, but soon it was also investigated
by other disciplines such as pedagogy and psychology. The result of the involvement of these
sciences was not the multifaceted study of the problem of dyslexia but the controversy between
these disciplines. In the course of a long-term study of the problem, scholars changed many
terms until they reached the term “Dyslexia” (Porpodas, 1997).
According to Jean Cheng Gorman (2004), the term dyslexia is often used to refer to reading
difficulties, and is a familiar term for many people. Some people use it to describe all the
problems associated with reading and writing, or some perceive dyslexia as a problem with
letter inversions (e.g. they write “3” instead of “E”). Despite, all the controversy, dyslexia is
well-diagnosed as a type of reading disability, and other types of learning difficulties have been
properly understood. The main difficulty of the problem is phonological processing. Each
language consists of phonemes. Different combinations of these small sound units create the
words. A child with dyslexia has a difficulty distinguishing phoneme when they are grouped
together in a word. Correspondingly, a child has difficulty composing phonemes in words when
he/she writes. Reading becomes a tedious task because of the difficulty of recognizing the
sound units that make up the words. Spelling and writing are challenges for the same reason.
Decoding exercises and identification of the number of syllables in a word are extremely
difficult for children with dyslexia. This is a serious disorder, which is associated with
abnormalities in the brain area responsible for linguistic functions. People with dyslexia are
unable to understand the phonological structure of the language, which prevents them from
processing linguistic information and memorizing oral speech. There is also difficulty in the
attribution of the correct letter-to-phoneme matching, resulting in difficulties in building and
acquiring the basic reading and writing mechanism (Athanasiadis, 2001).
Maverommati (1995) reports that children with dyslexia have no problem with verbal
expression, unless there is a coexistence of articulation and speech disorder. Dyslexia means
an extraordinary difficulty in processing written language, and consequently difficulty in
reading, disproportionately persistent in the student’s age and intellectual potential, and also a
persistent weakness in the learning of word spelling and automation of spelling capacity
(Mavrommati, 1995).
However, until now no definition can be considered accurate, complete and absolutely correct.
Consequently, it can be concluded that all the terms used at times refer to a difficulty or disorder

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without a specific clinical picture, for which the etiology could be multiple and the treatment
as varied as the phenotypic form of dyslexia.
The division of dyslexia into individual types can be applied in the formulation of the problem’s
definition, its etiology, and in the development of appropriate curricula and strategies to address
it in the school setting. Myklebust & Johnson (1962) noted that dyslexic individuals can be
categorized based on their deficits in their auditory and visual pathway and distinguished two
types of dyslexia: visual dyslexia and auditory dyslexia (Seymour, 1986).
Visual dyslexia, is now a prevalent form of dyslexia and it is characterized by deficits in visual
perception, visual distinction and visual memory (Stasinos, 2000). This disorder is not related
to the person’s vision. This means that severe vision problems cannot be considered a cause of
dyslexia. These specific deficits consist of the difficulty of dyslexic people to accurately decode
written symbols and convert them into verbal content. So, they often make mistakes in the
orientation and sequence of symbols, objects and instructions. Many times, they see symbols
of word fragments and whole words vice versa. They also have problems in short-term
memory, in succession and in memorizing (of the days of the week, poems, songs, etc.).
Auditory dyslexia, is characterized by a person’s lack of ability to represent the distinctive
sounds of the spoken language, to mix and synthesize sounds, to name persons and things, and
to observe the audio sequence associated with the ability to memorize related information,
observing their correct organization and order (Velluntino, 1987). As in the visual, in auditory
dyslexia the deficit has a minimal relationship with hearing as such. We could compare this
type of dyslexia with the problem of “tone deafness” in music (Stasinos, 2000). In these cases,
the person is characterized by a lack of ability to easily distinguish the subtle differences
between sounds. The difficulties of children with auditory dyslexia are particularly noticeable
when asked to write in dictation. They also find it difficult to read out difficult combinations
of letters correctly and to perceive the rhyme between word phrases.
At the same time, Boder (1973) distinguished three types of dyslexia: dysphonetic dyslexia,
dyseidetic dyslexia and mixed dyslexia. The first category includes children who have
difficulty in analysing and synthesizing sounds and syllables, since they encounter a problem
in matching symbols and sounds (graphemes – phonemes). These people read the words in a
holistic way. According to Boder (1973), 63% of dyslexic children are dysphonetic.
Dyseidetic dyslexia includes children who have difficulty in understanding the sequences of
the letters of words as visual assemblies. They read (unlike the first-category) while spelling
the words with the help of the voice method (letter by letter), 9% of dyslexic children are
dyseidetic (Boder, 1973). The third category results from the combination of the two previous
types and includes children with mixed visual and auditory difficulties, accounting for 22% of
the dyslexics studied by Boder (1973).
It should be emphasized that many researchers have come to a different division of the types
of dyslexia (Mattis, 1978; Vernon, 1979; Bakker, 1990). We must therefore be especially
careful when trying to classify a dyslexic person into some type of dyslexia, since in most cases
of dyslexic people there are deficits that are very hard to categorize. In conclusion, it should be
stressed that dyslexia, is still a subject of reflection, controversy and disagreement among
scholars. The exact wording of the definition, diagnosis and justification of the problem has
been a problem for researchers (Frith, 1999). We could therefore classify dyslexia as one of

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the most controversial issues that have challenged sciences such as medicine, psychology and
pedagogy.

1.2. Causes and symptoms of dyslexia

For years, scientists have been trying to discover the nature of the functional disorder of the
dyslexic student that leads to the severe difficulty of recognizing letters through detailed
research. Opinions come from different fields, creating a rivalry. Of course, the issue of
whether intrinsic or environmental factors are causing the damage has been solved and the
inherent nature of dyslexia is now known. What scientists are trying to find out is how this
functional impairment manifests itself and, consequently, which functions are not being
performed in the right way, resulting in the development of reading and writing disorders.
Opinions on this issue are directed by the scientific discipline to which the scientist who will
investigate it belongs (Porpodas, 1997).
The following present the various hypotheses about the etiology of dyslexia. These hypotheses
are classified in four categories. According to this classification, dyslexia is the result of: (a)
neurological underperformance, (b) incomplete hemispherical dominance, (c) genetic
abnormalities and (d) functional abnormalities in perceptive and cognitive processing
(Porpodas, 1997).
The following reading errors were observed in most dyslexic students and have been
highlighted by many scholars, such as Critchley (1970), Miles (1974), Newton & Thomson
(1974), Mavrommati (1995).

General characteristics of children with dyslexia

• Confusion of right-left concepts.

• Difficulty in distinguishing the dominant eye, hand, foot.
• Difficulty in orientation and space-time perception.
• Sound discrimination problems. People with dyslexia have difficulty in discerning the sounds
of a word.
• Hyperactivity, impulsivity and clumsiness.
• Balance problems. People with dyslexia have problems in the centre of balance due to their
mixed laterality, and therefore they are awfully awkward and have difficulty performing
exercises that require balance.
• Difficulty repeating multi-syllable words and numbers in reverse order.
• Visual perception disorder, particularly in gestalts and visual memory.
• Difficulty in audio-visual matching of stimuli.
• Inability to concentrate on an activity for a specific amount of time.
• Short span and duration of the short-term memory. They have difficulty in recalling events
that happened a short time ago
• Probable difficulties in mathematics (dyscalculia).

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• When they express themselves verbally, they do not use much more than they want to express.
Many errors of syntactic and semantic content are also encountered.
• They avoid anything related to writing, especially books.
• They are characterized by organizational problems, are clumsy and untidy
• They cannot understand sequence and successiveness.
• Difficulty in identifying rhymes in words.

In reading

• They omit, add, replace, and transpose syllable or word letters.

• They confuse the letters that look the same, e.g. b, d.
• When they begin to learn, progress is steady but still slower than their peers.
• They are easily distracted and then they cannot find the point where they were left.
• They do not pause at the punctuation points but can stop at another point and change the
meaning.
• They confuse different words that are composed of the same letters (e.g. tea, eat).
• They have difficulty in reading and pronouncing unusual words.
• They read slowly, hesitantly, syllabically, without making sense.
• They have difficulty in understanding the meaning of the text they read.
• They have difficulty in finding the correct row in their text.
• They pronounce vowels in a wrong way.
• They are characterized by mirror reading
• They add unrelated phonemes during word reading.
• They replace one word with another word with similar meaning.
• They have a weak memory and cannot remember instructions and printed words (Porpodas,
1997; Mavrommati, 2004; Floratou, 1992).

In writing and spelling

The difficulties of dyslexic students in writing relate to the general features described above.
These difficulties, however, should not be related to the condition of dysgraphia, which is a
functional abnormality due to visual-motor coordination impairment.
The difficulties that children with dyslexia encounter in writing are associated with cognitive
deficits. Research has shown that while dyslexic children do not experience any problems in
copying, they have great difficulty in spontaneous writing. The writing of dyslexic children is
characterized by:
• Sloppiness and smudges in the text, making it unreadable.
• Many misspellings even in words they have learned systematically.
• They skip letters, syllables and words.
• They insert letters, syllables and words.

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• They replace letters in words because they confuse the letters that look the same, for example,
d-b, m-n.
• Mirror writing of letters and/or words.
• They place unnecessary gaps and eliminate spaces between words.
• No use of punctuation.
• Word accentuation problems.
• Incorrect use of capital letters.
• Incorrect structure of sentences.
• Limited vocabulary and expressive ability.
• Telegraphic way of “thinking and writing”. Limited capacity in meanings and ideas.
• The content of “thinking and writing” does not always respond to the subject matter.
• They may know and say the spelling rules but when they write they do not recall the rule
• Incomplete alignment of words on the row of their notebook.
• They do not generalize the application of a rule easily if they do not practice through specific
exercises (Porpodas, 1997; Mavrommati, 2004; Floratou, 1992).

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1.3. Difficulties and problems of a student with dyslexia

Dyslexia as a problem of processing written speech is distinguished in two broad and

defined categories: 1) acquired dyslexia and 2) specific or evolutionary dyslexia
(Porpodas, 1997).
Acquired dyslexia is characterized by a person’s difficulty or inability to process written
speech. It differs from the specific dyslexia in that in the case of acquired dyslexia the
reading, writing and spelling skills were fully acquired but were lost or diminished as a
result of brain injury in the lateral temporal area of the left hemisphere. According to
Geschwind (1962), acquired dyslexia is distinguished in three types. The first is
characterized by severe incompetence in the comprehension of spoken and written
language and by a difficulty in producing spelled writing, while the second type is
characterized by an inability to read and write, and the third type is marked more by an
inability to read (Geschwind, 1962).
Specific dyslexia based on the difficulties faced by dyslexic individuals is distinguished in
two categories: visual and auditory dyslexia (Ingram, 1964; Boder, 1973). Visual dyslexia,
is the most widespread form of dyslexia and is characterized by the lack of ability of a
person to accurately translate the written symbols into corresponding verbal content
(Stasinos, 1999). The problem of these people is that they find it difficult to learn through
visual function, confuse words or letters that are visually similar, they usually process all
words as if they are seeing them for the first time, have limited visual vocabulary and
therefore have difficulty reading the words in total, but process them in detail. Children
with visual dyslexia have difficulty in spelled writing and are characterized by many vocal
errors (Porpodas, 1997).
Auditory dyslexia, is the most difficult form of dyslexia in terms of treatment. The child
with auditory dyslexia has difficulties in analysing words, distinguishing auditory details,
reproducing sound units, and converting visual language symbols in auditory. These
children have difficulty writing a text in dictation, and their spelling performance is low
and inferior to their reading performance.
The main problem faced by children with auditory dyslexia is their inability to perceive
the similarities of the initial or final sounds of words, i.e. they do not understand the
double sound in the consonant assemble of words. These children often replace words
with similar meaning (Johnson & Myklebust, 1967).
The mental capacity of dyslexic children is at average levels (Bender, 2004), but this does
not rule out the possibility of higher than the average intelligence. While intelligence is
not a problem, dyslexic students have problems in the perception and processing of visual
and auditory stimuli, attention problems, memory deficits and metacognitive problems.
Below are some of the cognitive and metacognitive problems faced by students with
dyslexia (Botsas, 2007):
1. Attention and concentration problems. Most of the dyslexic students have difficulty
concentrating on the written text that they have before them and starting to read

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carefully (Hallihan & Reeve, 1980). They also have difficulty in maintaining the
concentration they have achieved.

2. Problems of interpretation. When a dyslexic reader fails to directly identify the

interpretation of a word, he or she searches in his/her mental dictionary for an
interpretation that fits within the text. But then he/she may be misled and retrieve
interpretations of the word that seem like its image (Seymour, 1986). In particular,
according to the interactive - compensatory model of reading skills development, word
recognition and the construction of meaning are realized through a process of utilizing
information from various sources. A central element of this process is considered to be a
part of the memory system called the “mental inner dictionary”. This system is considered
to include the following subsystems (Agaliotis, 2006): a) phonological, which controls the
rules of cataloguing, fragmentation and pronunciation of the phonological units of words,
allowing the person to recognize the words after processing them in part and recalling
matches of graphemes - phonemes, b) the lexical, which processes and memorizes the
words as morphological sets and allows the person to easily and quickly recognize
frequent words without needing systematic matching of graphemes – phonemes, c) the
semantic, which includes the meanings of the words and allows the person to recognize
the words on the basis of a combined system of graphemical, phonological and conceptual
representations; d) the spelling, which handles the various structured spelling sets of the
spelling units, that is, the letters complexes that have a fixed relationship and display
mode, the acquisition of which greatly facilitates the recognition of words, since written
and spoken speech matches are made at the level of groups rather than individual letters.
So, when one of the above subsystems has any malfunction, the reader tries to
compensate for it by using more than the rest, so the final reading product does not fully
correspond to the text to be read. While the dyslexic student makes a great effort to
visually distinguish the syllables, the letters and the words in the text, reads slowly, but
also loses the meaning of what he or she reads, precisely because his or her effort focuses
on the recognition of words. These two processes, namely word recognition and
understanding, present the image of two parallel lines that do not meet, whereas they
should coincide and occur simultaneously and automatically, as is the case with the
typical reader. Incorrect reading accentuation is also the cause of this. At the moment of
reading, the dyslexic student does not know exactly how to accentuate the word he or she
reads, and often does not know the word itself (Markou, 1998).
3. Problems in the syntactic function of words. Successful understanding is largely based
on the syntactic analysis of the functions of a word. The investigation of the syntactic
organization of the sentence assists the reader to regard it as a compact structure that
retains the words that make it up in the working memory properly grouped so as to begin
the process of their meaning (Norman et al., 1992). Students with dyslexia, however, face
significant problems and have difficulty in analysing the texts they read syntactically (Vos
& Friedenici, 2003). These difficulties are due not only to the lack of syntactic knowledge
but also to the general difficulty of perceiving organized structures based on the poor use
of organizational strategies (Comoldi et al., 1996).

16
4. Persistence in literal understanding. In order to understand the full meaning of a text,
readers need to go beyond the information explicitly mentioned therein, linking and
comparing ideas in the text to their previous knowledge (Oakhill & Yuill, 1996). At the
same time, the polysemy of words, when the understanding of meaning depends on the
total semantic content, creates additional problems for dyslexic students. For example,
we mention the sets “sharp knife” and “sharp look”. As the child has understood only the
literal meaning of the knife’s edge, that is, that with the knife it can cut something off, it is
unable to understand the figurative meaning of the other phrases and this leads to a series
of misunderstandings.
In addition, students with dyslexia often have a problem in understanding humour,
usually based on figurative speech. Only if they practice the flexible use of language will
they be able to realize the doubt that humour embraces.

5. Perception of the sentence as a complete text. Generalized difficulties in lexical access

and syntactic analysis lead students with dyslexia to perceive each sentence as a complete
text (Garner, 1988). The next sentence in the text is something different for these
students, and so they do not activate mechanisms to incorporate it into a compact
structure of understanding. In essence, they process the sentences of a text in a piecemeal
way, and for this reason the meaning they draw is also fragmentary and incomplete
(Wong, 1986).
6. Incomplete and vague mental representations of words and sentences. During the
understanding, mental representations of the words and sentences present in the written
text are created. However, these representations, in the case of dyslexic students, are
incomplete and vague (Haberlandt & Graesser, 1990).
This is because they perceive each sentence as a single text, and so the overall mental
representation of a text piece is fragmentary and unconnected, and on the other hand the
fact that they do not use profound processing and linguistic elements of the text that are
more complex (Perfetti et al., 1996).
7. Incomplete and fragmented cognitive base. Peterson (1993) reports that there are two
elements of reading: a general one, decoding, and a specific one, the understanding of
information. The difference in the performance of understanding each time is due to the
reader’s previous knowledge. The school course of students with dyslexia - in the first
grades of elementary school - is a constant struggle to acquire the mechanisms of first
reading and writing. It is therefore expected that there are enormous academic gaps
appear on the cognitive basis of these students, since they have lost so many years of
opportunity to structure it in an organized and effortless manner (Haberlandt & Graesser,
1990).
Problems in the cognitive base are exacerbated by the limitations in their working
memory, and thus in the procedures of proper storage and recalling of information. A
significant lack of organizational strategies does not allow them to easily integrate new
information into their otherwise fragmented cognitive base (Peterson, 1993).

17
8. Problem in understanding the goals of reading. Students with dyslexia have significant
problems with goal-setting before reading a text. Their ignorance of the real goals of
reading contributes to this, which are the understanding and self-the regulated learning,
as well as their difficulty in recognizing the specific requirements of the text they have
before them (Butler, 1998). This difficulty leads them either to reading without real
conscious processing or to the identification of mistaken goals and requirements for the
particular task, and thus a failure in understanding.
9. Problems in using strategies. The selection and use of cognitive and metacognitive
strategies by students with dyslexia is of particular interest as it influences performance.
Dyslexic students cannot choose the appropriate strategy because of their poor
repertoire strategies and their lack of metacognitive knowledge that does not allow them
to know which strategy to use (Botsas & Panteliadou, 2003). However, the problems in
using strategies exist even when they know which strategy they should use. Thus, when
needed, they do not use the strategy properly, they cannot adapt it appropriately and
flexibly to make it effective (Papetti et al., 1992).
10. Problems in self-regulatory strategies. Students with dyslexia face significant
problems in actively monitoring their understanding while they are reading a text (Botsas
& Panteliadou, 2003). These difficulties relate to the assessment of the text in terms of
clarity, meaningfulness and consistency. They also face problems in self-regulatory
strategies such as control, planning, monitoring. Cognitive strategies refer to ways of
processing information, while metacognitive strategies refer to selection criteria, control
and review of cognitive strategies (Agaliotis, 2004).
11. Problems in identifying important information. The difficulty in identifying important
information and other important supporting information is one of the most important
problems faced by students with dyslexia, as it negatively affects the ability of
understanding. This problem is particularly complex and is due mainly to the lack or
misuse of cognitive and metacognitive strategies. A typical reader creates complete
cognitive representations for the entire text, paragraphs and sentences. These
representations should have been processed and stored properly in the reader’s long-
term memory so that he or she can recall them, keep them active in the working memory,
and ultimately compare them with the use of deep processing strategies. All these
processes are very difficult, especially for children with dyslexia who have problems in
each and every part of this process (Cornoldi et al., 1996).
12. Difficulty in linking new information to the old one. Students with dyslexia cannot
process the information and knowledge they obtain from the texts they read. One way to
do this would be to recall, activate and use their previous knowledge of the subject
(Gough et al., 1996). In this process, however, there is a problem due to the lack of
activation strategies of prior knowledge, their difficulty in identifying and processing the
text information, and the limited knowledge they generally have on academic subjects
(Butler, 1998). Also, students with dyslexia face great difficulties in evaluating, logically
organizing and coordinating both incoming information and multiple cognitive activities
that occur at the same time (Swanson, 1988).

18
13. Problems in identifying the requirements of a task. Typical students, when faced with
a cognitive task, are generally aware of the requirements as well as whether they have
the ability to complete it successfully. Conversely, students with dyslexia face problems
in understanding the requirements of most of the cognitive tasks they are required to
engage in school (Panteliadou et al., 2004). For example, in reading texts they consider
their purpose to be simple decoding rather than in-depth understanding. A
misinterpretation of the requirements of the tasks by dyslexic students leads them to
mistaken choices during their learning effort (Butler, 1998). Moreover, these students
are not able to appreciate the difficulty of the task they have before them, so that they can
properly adjust their learning effort and, in particular, the cognitive resources they will
use.
The serious difficulties faced by teenage students with dyslexia are not solely due to the
nature of dyslexia as such, but also to the particular cognitive and organizational
requirements created in secondary education. In the Greek educational system, the
elementary school and the junior high school (Gymnasium in Greece) are not an organic
unit despite the introduction of the nine-year compulsory education. The two educational
levels are not uniformly. They are radically different in terms of structure, organization,
function, methodology and learning subjects, as well as in terms of the evaluation process.
Thus, in junior high school students come in contact for the first time with a large number
of teachers, who usually do not know their peculiarities, while the volume of information
and cognitive requirements are - compared to primary education - particularly high.
Also, in secondary education, children for the first time face the possibility of remaining
in the same grade, while their performance is graded separately for each lesson by
different teachers. At the same time, at junior high school, the learning pace is more
intensive and the assessment of student performance is an important element in
students’ life (Dimitropoulos et al., 1997).
Also, at the junior high school level, students and parents shape ambitions and are
oriented towards the identification of career choices. The outcome of the school
attendance determines the choice of the school unit that a student will attend after
graduation from the junior high school to a great extent, i.e. High School (or Lyceum in
Greece) or Technological or Vocational School. Beyond that, when entering secondary
education institutions, students are challenged to face a variety of situations, such as
school environment change, biological changes in puberty, changes in the social roles
they are asked to play, relationships with peers, and with the opposite sex. Most typical
students manage to meet new requirements, as they have complex cognitive and
metacognitive skills to solve problems. Conversely, dyslexic students face major
problems at all levels. Also, during adolescence, when friendship and social acceptance
are vital issues for all teenagers, problems in social skills are hindering dyslexic students.
The accumulation of failure, low self-esteem and self-perception, poor social acceptance,
and often disruptive and inappropriate behavior mark those students (Lemer, 2003).
The issue of social acceptance of students with learning difficulties from their peers has
been explored. Sociological studies (Sarbonie & Kauffman, 1986) have shown that
students with learning difficulties are socially isolated from their classmates, as the latter

19
do not easily accept them. Other studies (Panteliadou & Botsas, 2004) show that 25-30%
of students with learning difficulties face rejection by their classmates compared to 8-
16% of students without learning difficulties. Also, 12-21% of students without learning
difficulties are popular in their classes, while only self-esteem implies the assessment of
the individual for himself and is intertwined with the feeling of acceptance that one has
for his/her self (Leontari, 1996).
Self-perception refers to the cognitive aspect of the concept of self, and is a
multidimensional aspect that relates to how the individual perceives his/her ability to be
appropriate in specific areas such as academic competence, physical appearance,
behaviour etc. (Leontari, 1996), 6% of children with learning difficulties rank among the
most popular children (Panteliadou & Botsas, 2004).
One of the reasons why students with dyslexia fail to develop social relationships is that
their behaviour is significantly inappropriate in different circumstances in relation to the
behaviour of typical students. While the data show that students with dyslexia have the
same knowledge as their typical classmates about how to behave in any social situation,
they fail to function in the right way spontaneously (Panteliadou & Botsas, 2004). Also,
the social development of students with dyslexia is hampered by their inability to
interpret non-lingual messages during their social interactions (Panteliadou & Botsas,
2004). Also, these students have a particular difficulty in understanding and interpreting
emotional expressions when cues are given visually and, especially, when the cues are
auditory (Bender, 2004).
Floratou (1996) distinguishes two categories of junior high school students with learning
difficulties. Those who for various reasons were not supported in the primary school by
a medical-pedagogical service KEDDY (Centres for Differential Diagnosis, Diagnosis and
Support), did not attend a special class and when they went to junior high school they
were considered “indifferent” and “lazy”. Parents and teachers have accepted that they
are not suited for academic achievements and their failure was considered normal.
Usually these students leave compulsory attendance after successive failures and after
they have accepted the fate of “school failure”. The second category includes students
whose weaknesses were diagnosed early in elementary school and attended special
classes. But in the field of the junior high school with intense competition and excess
requirements their performance remains low. Students with dyslexia are aimed at
avoiding performance and because of the fear of failing once again, they try to defend and
support - as they think – their selves by choosing not to engage in reading texts. So, they
withdraw and abandon text reading. This attitude, however, keeps them away from
reading experiences and prevents them from building appropriate and important
knowledge of vocabulary and metacognitive syntactic knowledge (Stanovich et al., 1996).
Students with dyslexia present an ineffective profile of “learned helplessness”,
attributing their success to the fate and ease of the text, while their failure is attributed
exclusively to their poor competence (Borkowski, 1992). They also have low self-efficacy
and low self-esteem, resulting in low goals. Low goals, even when they are achieved, do
not have a great cognitive value for themselves, and therefore do not offer effectiveness
in text-reading tasks (Peterson et al., 1993). However, most children with dyslexia go into

20
puberty with a taste of school failure and rejection, the feeling of insecurity, fear of
tomorrow and professional rehabilitation, the complaint that their effort is rarely
rewarded. Yet, the existence of dyslexia, as such, is clearly not a barrier to the
development of the individual. On the contrary, all kinds of discrimination and social
stigmatization have far more serious implications for the free development of the
personality of dyslexic adolescents.

21
Chapter 2: Examination - Framework by the Ministry of Education for
Dyslexic Students

2.1 School level

According to the No. 1846/2000 Circular of the Ministry of Education and Religious
Affairs, teachers should, if they observe some particular difficulties in students, refer the
parents to the Centres for Differential Diagnosis, Diagnosis and Support (KEDDY).
According to Article 4 of Law 3699/2008, the special educational needs of students with
dyslexia are investigated and identified by the KEDDY and the medical-pedagogical
centres of other Ministries certified by the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs.
Diagnostic, Evaluation and Support Bodies (as amended by Article 51 of Law 4547/2018
and effective from 12/6/2018):

1. The special educational needs of students with disabilities and/or special educational
needs are investigated and identified by the Centres for Educational and Counselling
Support (KESY), the Interdisciplinary Educational Assessment and Support Committees
(EDEADY) and the recognized by the Ministry of Education Community Mental Health
Centres for Children and Adolescents of other Ministries.
2. By joint decision of the Ministers of Education, Research and Religious Affairs, Health
and Labour, Social Security and Social Solidarity, the criteria, procedures and bodies
responsible for the recognition of the Community Centres for Mental Health of Children
and Adolescents shall be defined in accordance with paragraph 1, as well as the frequency
of their evaluation.
3. In the context of individual assessments, the KESY may evaluate students who have not
reached the age of 18. Individuals over the age of 18, who have been previously evaluated
by the KESY as disabled or with special educational needs fall within the competence of
the KESY to issue evaluation reports on attendance in educational institutions, if they
have not reached their 30th year of age.
The diagnosis of dyslexia should be carried out in the first grades of the elementary
school so that the student can receive special help and individualized teaching both in
school and in the family environment, if this is feasible. It is a fact that students with
dyslexia find it difficult to respond to the learning needs and need encouragement,
understanding and help to be consistent with their school obligations.

22
2.2 Exam level

According to No. 28722/C2 Ministerial Decision “Examination of students with

Disabilities and Special Educational Needs of Daily and Evening Junior High Schools” (GG
B / 276 / 16-3-2010), students with special learning difficulties such as dyslexia,
dysgraphia, dyscalculia, dysanagnosia, dysorthographia are examined orally upon
request. When students of this case wish to answer some questions in writing, these are
evaluated during the evaluation of the examination.
According to the aforementioned Ministerial decision, the examination of students with
special learning difficulties, during the few short trimester tests and the promotion and
graduation exams, is done verbally (at their request) and if the student wishes it in
written form, by teacher at the same time with the students in the class to which they
belong and on the same subjects.
The relevant application is submitted to the student’s Gymnasium accompanied by a
public document certifying the existence of specific learning difficulties, or a report
(evaluation report) from a Centre for Differential Diagnosis, Diagnosis and Support
(KEDDY) operating at the headquarters of the Prefectural Authorities and the Prefectural
Departments of Paragraph 2 of Article 12 of Law 3699/2008, or a certificate from a
Medical Pedagogical Centre, certified by the Ministry of Education, indicating the specific
learning difficulty of the student, and the re-evaluation period.
When there is a divergence of opinion between the KEDDY and the Medical-Pedagogical
Centre for the same student, the right to appeal to a five-member Secondary Specialized
Diagnostic Evaluation Committee (EDEA), which is constituted by decision of the
Regional Director of Education, is given. The decision of the Secondary EDEA is final. In
the event that there is a difference of opinion between the KEDDY opinions and the
Medical-Pedagogical Centre for the same student and no recourse has been made to the
five-member Secondary EDEA, the KEDDY’s opinion prevails. In case of recourse to the
EDEA, the relevant application and the report shall be submitted to the Principal of the
respective Gymnasium no later than 10 days before the start of the promotion and
graduation exams of each year. The reports of the KEDDY and of the Medical-Pedagogical
Centres are issued as a matter of priority upon request of the person concerned.
Requests for oral examination and the opinions of the KEDDY and the Medical-
Pedagogical Centres shall be submitted to the Principal of the respective Gymnasium no
later than the 30th of April each year. In extraordinary and unforeseen circumstances,
they may be submitted later.

23
2.3. University studies

In tertiary education, students encounter difficulties in terms of preserving time,

concentrating, organizing the study of courses, spelling (McLoughlin et al., 1994), writing,
copying and numbers. There are also weaknesses associated with the information
memorization and recalling, expression and especially the written, or the taking of notes
during the lecture (Gilroy & Miles, 1996), or the writing of papers or exams (Mortimore
& Crozier, 2006).
Also, a large number of dyslexic students, according to Stampoltzis et al. (2010), have
negative experiences in primary and secondary education, but it is not clear whether
their anxiety is linked to their performance at university or the impact of their past
experiences (Stampoltzis et al., 2010). Various investigations have been made on these
critical issues.
Some universities include support means such as extra time for exams, access to teachers
who were responsible for dyslexia support, and the use of information technology.
However, there were unmet needs in a number of areas, such as support for specific
matters, organization of courses, learning during the lectures and academic writing skills
(Mortimore & Crozier, 2006).
The existence of few available studies on the personality of tertiary education students
with dyslexia compared to their peers without dyslexia has prompted Tops et al. (2013)
to compare 100 Dutch-speaking students with dyslexia with 100 students without
learning difficulties (control group). They used a specialized personality questionnaire
that measures Big Five factors, which are extraversion, openness to experience,
neuroticism, agreeableness and conscientiousness. The results did not show large
differences in the personality between the two groups, a finding that is in line with
Swanson & Hsieh’s previous meta-analysis (2009). According to the findings, dyslexic
students do not perceive themselves differently than their non-dyslexic peers. Also,
dyslexic students seem to be more resilient in dealing with additional challenges despite
the disappointing situations that occur sometimes (Tops et al., 2013).
Wanting to study the relationship between dyslexia and the learning styles of dyslexic
students, Stampoltzis et al. (2010) examined the learning styles and the educational
characteristics (academic performance and anxiety) of 20 dyslexic and 40 non-dyslexic
students in 3 universities in Greece. The results showed that dyslexics prefer the
kinesthetic learning style, while non-dyslexics the visual style. It seems that the
kinesthetic learning style that involves hands and touch facilitates the dyslexic people’s
need for activity and exploration. Non-dyslexics prefer visual learning based on visual
stimuli such as charts, illustrations, videos, etc. In terms of primary and secondary school
performance, dyslexics ranked themselves lower on a scale of 1 to 5, in relation to non-
dyslexics, while there was no difference in the performance between the two groups at
the university, which is considered a less competitive and demanding environment than
school. For dyslexic students, significant correlations were found between the kinesthetic

24
learning style and the general and written performance in primary education, as well as
the written performance in secondary education.
A further significant correlation was observed between the acoustic learning style and
the performance in primary education. Non-dyslexics noted that school stress has a
significant correlation with the visual and the kinesthetic learning style. Therefore, school
and university need to develop teaching methods that use and combine visual, acoustic,
kinesthetic, and tactile learning so that students can improve their learning and achieve
their goals (Stampoltzis et al., 2010).
Bruce (1983) monitored the careers of 75 young people with dyslexia who, when they
were children, were referred to a London-based Word-Blind Centre for diagnosis and
intervention. The sample consisted of 68 men and 7 women aged 18-30 years and
followed the semi-structured interview process. Participants remembered having
encountered difficulties due to the lack of appropriate corrective measures in schools,
such as that the personnel were very hostile to the idea of dyslexia and had negative
school experiences. Some said that after their dyslexia was diagnosed there was a shift
towards a more sympathetic attitude from the school. They also reported the struggle
they had with the local government in order to be able to receive the Centre’s services
and consider the help they received from it lifesaving. The diagnosis of dyslexia relieved
them and made them determined to achieve their goals despite their disability (Bruce,
1983). Participants stated that in order to cope with the difficulties of dyslexia, they used
technical means such as: calculators, typewriters, telephones and tape recorders. For
spelling problems, they used the dictionaries and resorted to the help from relatives,
friends and colleagues. As students and workers, they used various ways to prevent their
dyslexia from being revealed. They tried to hide their difficulties in spelling, took
assignments that required writing at home or wrote only the key words, developed
techniques to memorize information to circumvent reading and written expression.
Participants recall that the facilities they received related to the use of a typewriter, the
employment of a scribe, the provision of unlimited time for the exams and the fact that
they had no penalty for their misspellings. However, the final impression left to the
participants was that their educational experience was largely disparaging and their
rewards small (Bruce, 1983). Their own efforts and those of their families have helped to
tackle the problems.
By comparing the professions of the participants with those of their fathers, there is a
separate downward shift in the occupational status of young people with dyslexia. Most
respondents (63%) were employed in lower-class professions and 33% in professions of
the same class as their fathers (Bruce, 1983).
Michail’s (2010) study focused on and examined the experiences of 14 undergraduate
and postgraduate dyslexic students aged 18-40 who attended 3 universities in the West
Midlands of England between 1999 and 2001. The study, through interviews, aimed to
explore the experience of students of tertiary education with dyslexia, to shed light on the
impact of dyslexia in their lives, but also to look at how they met the challenges, the
strategies they developed to overcome them, and the facilities they received at the
university. The family played a predominant role in the lives of the participants,

25
especially the mothers. The students were generally satisfied with the welfare and
support they received from the institutions, although further research should be done on
the attitudes and perceptions of teachers in relation to dyslexia. Overall, the participants
had positive experiences from the university and had accepted the label of dyslexia as it
was the cause of their low school performance in the past. The majority of students did
not see dyslexia as a disability but focused on its positive aspects such as creative
thinking, the ability to visualize things in a different way, determination and power to
work hard.
They considered dyslexia part of their lives, although it was sometimes difficult, all
students were determined not to let dyslexia hamper their success (Michail, 2010). The
participants stated that before they got diagnosed with dyslexia, they experienced
negative comments and prejudice, resulting in a lack of trust and insecurity. After their
diagnosis, they improved their confidence and self-esteem and stated that at the
university they feel they have more confidence in themselves than they did during their
school years. Despite that the majority of participants experienced the negative attitudes
of teachers during school years because teachers then did not know about dyslexia,
believe that this experience was a driving force to succeed. Determination was the only
thing that made them continue to work hard. While in school years they linked dyslexia
to intelligence, they did not believe so when they went to the university. They focused on
the strengths of dyslexia and not on its weaknesses. They were aware of the difficulties
and the necessary work with the support professors. They were also aware of the
requirements of their courses and that they should work twice as hard as their peers to
get the degree. Overall, the participants stated they were ready to reveal their dyslexia to
their close friends or their teachers. The difficulties of the students of Michail’s study
(2010) during their school years referred to writing and spelling, while at the university
it was more difficult for them to manage time as they needed more time to study and
understand the amount of the material they had to learn for each course. Compared to
their peers, dyslexic students had to work twice as harder to manage and submit their
assignments within the time limits. Another major difficulty stated by the majority of
students was to express their thoughts written on paper, and that is why they felt dyslexia
as an obstacle to expressing their potential. They felt that their grades were inferior,
because their writing skills did not meet the standards.
Not adopting common definitions of dyslexia, but also of emotional problems, causes
problems regarding the consistency of research results and the generalization of findings.
According to some research studies, people with learning difficulties and reading
difficulties have a high incidence of emotional and behavioural problems (Tovilli, 2003).
A student with dyslexia that is not able to develop effective skills and strategies in some
important areas of the curriculum faces serious emotional consequences. When poor
school performance is attributed to immaturity, laziness, carelessness, attention deficit,
defence or when there is opposition between teachers and parents as to the explanation
of difficulty, emotional damage occurs.
Several studies show that students with learning difficulties show some emotional
disorders at school, outside school or both. The traumatic experiences of the students

26
during reading and the anxiety cause weakness in concentration, resulting in high levels
of stress that interfere with the learning process. Reading may be a threatening process
for dyslexic students that causes stress and involves parents, teachers and classmates.
Dyslexic students react by manifesting behaviours related to anger, rage, fear and
avoidance. However, the causal relationship between stress and learning difficulties has
not yet been solved (Papadatos, 2005).
In particular, dyslexic boys at around 9 years of age have emotional problems related to
aggression, disorder, stress, withdrawal in their own world, resistance to pressure,
addiction tendencies, and learning problems, such as negative reading attitude, easy
discouragement, perceiving that success is a risk and generally avoided learning (Tsovili,
2003). According to Freud, stress is the fundamental phenomenon and the central
problem of neurosis, which has a significant impact on personality formation. Stress is
related to psychological and social problems. Social anxiety stress weakens the memory
function and implies reduced academic performance.
Learning difficulties and associated emotional problems arise from the family and school
environment. Dyslexics may be stressful in potentially threatening situations, such as
reading, due to their reduced performance. This stress results in further deterioration of
reading (Tsovili, 2003).
Stampoltzis and Polychronopoulou (2008) studied how the individual, educational and
psycho-emotional characteristics of 16 students (11 boys and 5 girls) with special
learning difficulties (dyslexia) were related. The students were aged 19-26 and attended
8 university and technological institutions of higher education. Researchers used
psychometric tools and spontaneous writing (written essay) as questionnaires.
According to the results of the study, the majority of the students, who were men, had
mild difficulties faced with realism and evaluated their attendance at the university more
positively than they did for school. The research proposed addressing socio-emotional
pressures as a measure of stress control and improvement of students’ self-image with
the aim of acquiring the necessary academic skills and completing their studies
(Stampoltzis & Polychronopoulou, 2008).
Riddick et al. (1999), compared self-esteem, stress and educational experiences between
dyslexic and non-dyslexic university students. Each group consisted of 16 students (9
men and 7 women) and completed three questionnaires: The Culture-Free Self-Esteem
Inventory (Battle, 1992), the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger et al., 1983) and
a questionnaire on past and present educational experiences; in addition, dyslexic
students were interviewed. The dyslexic group showed significantly lower self-esteem
than the control group, but there was no difference in stress. However, the group of
dyslexic students reported that when they were in primary and secondary schools, they
felt more stressed and less able to write assignments compared to the control group. At
the university, there was no significant difference in anxiety between the two groups.
Many dyslexic students considered the university to be a nice environment, but they
rated themselves less capable in written assignments and their academic performance.

27
Students with special needs who disclose a disability may be stigmatized. Students with
invisible disabilities prefer to hide their disability to avoid the consequences of their
diversity (Stampoltzis & Polychronopoulou, 2007).
The emphasis on the diagnostic and individual needs of students continues to require
students to disclose these needs to their teachers. Despite existing procedures to
encourage students to make clear their particular learning needs, many choose not to do
so because they worry that their fellow students and staff will consider them lame, lazy
or that they do not try, and even that they are lying if they are people with invisible
disabilities (Matthews, 2009). The reason for concealing dyslexia is the negative attitudes
of students and teachers due to their limited knowledge of the specific learning needs of
disabled students and the necessary adaptations of the workplace for their support and
the perceptions that these students are slow or lazy (Griffiths et al., 2010). Students have
difficulty approaching supervisors in the academic departments who are unaware of
their difficulty. They are concerned about the prejudices and characterizations of other
students and teachers about dyslexia because they judge the presentation, organization,
grammar and spelling of their papers unfavourably (Mortimore & Crozier, 2006).
Corrigan and Watson (2002) have shown that public stigma can sometimes be
internalized and so is called self-stigma, which may reduce levels of self-esteem and self-
efficacy (Mullins & Preyde, 2013).

According to their research, at a university in Ontario, Canada, on a sample of ten female

students with invisible disabilities, the negative perceptions of the public were causing
public stigma to students with disabilities, and it was likely to suspend the support they
could receive, as they believed that the use of facilities would lead to disappointment
(Mullins & Preyde, 2013). It should be noted that when the facilities were provided in
ways that made students with special needs “very visible” had a negative effect, they
reduced the willingness of students to ask for these facilities (Mullins and Preyde, 2013).
Students with special needs should not be treated differently and the disability should
not be used as a label to define the person. Students may have advantages in other areas
and may contribute to a team (Griffiths et al., 2010).
Abroad, the attendance of tertiary education from dyslexic students began in the 1970s,
and since then research studies have been carried out to address issues related to
students’ needs, studies and the policy of the institutions. Research in English-speaking
countries has focused on the extent of dyslexia at the university level, and on the ways in
which students with dyslexia can be supported. The experience of all these years has led
higher education institutions to develop a set of supportive measures to bring them into
line with the laws that ensured the rights of people with disabilities in order to tackle the
issues arising from the attendance of students with dyslexia, to enable them to
successfully complete their studies, to reduce the leakage of students from the university
and to make use of the assets and positive features of people with dyslexia when they
enter the labour market as professional practitioners or scientists. In the past, dyslexic
students were unable to respond to the degree of difficulty of the courses, which meant
that they were dropping out of their studies, shifting to easier studies, delaying getting

28
their degrees or taking their degrees with low marks. Richardson and Wydell, as reported
by Taylor et al. (2009), found that students with dyslexia in the UK were more likely to
drop out of their studies in the first year and less likely to complete them, although with
adequate support the pace of completion of dyslexic studies matched that of students
without any difficulties. In the research by Taylor et al. (2009), 2 out of the 22 students
in the sample dropped out of their studies and this was done during the first year (Taylor
et al., 2009).
The stigma of dyslexia often prevents students from receiving the support provided by
the university. Universities could cope with the stigma of students by informing new
entrants about services and support, while creating a climate of confidence for students
that they will not be stigmatized. At the same time, university staff should be aware of the
dyslexia and the difficulties faced by students and adopt policies that are guided by a
model of empowerment, which recognizes the advantages of students, highlighting their
motivation and persistence in overcoming obstacles to their studies (Herrington &
Hunter-Carsch, 2001). According to two national surveys in Canada, the two biggest
categories of disabilities are dyslexia (23.9%) and mental disorders (17.8%). Students
with dyslexia, compared to students with physical disabilities, were less likely to report
positive attitudes towards their institution and pointed out that few people from their
faculty were interested in helping them as students. Their institutions have also
expressed fewer positive reactions to them as students (Association of Canadian
Community Colleges, 2008).
Therefore, it is important to ascertain the reason why students with invisible disabilities
have negative experiences (Mullins & Preyde, 2013). In Greek universities, the number of
students with dyslexia is rising year on year, as prospective students make use of oral
examinations and additional examination time as prescribed by the law.
Greek universities mainly use the measure of oral examination, which is applied
according to the judgment of each professor. This measure is inexpensive, but it is not
enough to help students with dyslexia in their studies because students face difficulties
in attending higher education institutions, and if there is no provision for facilities then
there is an increased risk that they will not be able to complete their studies. The research
by Stampoltzis and Polychronopoulou (2008) explored the recognition practices as well
as student support in order to tailor educational needs. The support measures for
dyslexic students implemented by the various universities abroad constitute an
important information tank for the development of supportive policy by Greek
universities. According to Michail’s (2010) research, in three universities with specialized
staff for dyslexia support, the dyslexic students wishing to receive disability allowance
were helped by support teachers to complete the application. The majority of students
used the extra time they were entitled to and received support for workload and exams.
Some were assisted in writing assignments and organization, and some were given the
support of scribes to take notes for them in the auditorium. Although the students had a
positive opinion about the learning support groups at their universities, there was no
overall support from the institution that approached the particular needs of individuals.
There were no national guidelines on what a “reasonable regulation” is, and this decision

29
lies with universities. The oral examination can be considered as a reasonable
arrangement, but there is no consensus, so other universities apply it, while others do
not. To identify dyslexic students, some universities use special stickers on the test
papers during examinations so as to avoid rigidity for spelling mistakes. The participants
asked for information on all available support options and stressed that there should be
a better teacher information network for students with dyslexia as well as facilities that
lead to more positive learning experiences. Students’ views on academic staff varied,
some teachers provided notes, while others did not. In addition, there was confusion as
to the fact that the teaching staff was informed by the support professors about which
students are dyslexic because of the privacy of personal information.
Mortimore (2012) conducted a study in the UK at a university of seven academic faculties
with undergraduate and postgraduate students. The university claimed a fully inclusive
identity, commitment to widen participation, and maintained partnerships with local
authorities and non-governmental organizations. The number of students claiming
disability support allowance increased from 6.1% in 2004/2005 to 8.2% compared to
4.7% of students at national level. At the time of the study, 360 students claimed the
disability support allowance. This case study with mixed methodology design examined
policy documents and explored the experience of staff and students through interviews
and questionnaires and the suitability of the model of Fuller et al. (2004) as a measure of
participation in higher education institutions. Fuller et al. (2004) developed a uniform
six-stage progress model towards an inclusive institution that shows that different
individuals or departments can remain at different stages of development, delaying the
transformation of the whole system. The study investigated the extent to which this
model is reflected within the University in order to allow confirmation, identification and
elimination of discrimination against disabled people, as well as its development as fully
inclusive. The study also explored the progress of the University towards full
participation, the gaps between policy and practice, and how and where practices of bias
and discrimination against people with disabilities could survive (Mortimore, 2012). The
findings support the assertions of Fuller et al. (2004) that different individuals at
different levels of an organization are likely to be at different stages and support the need
for clearer support systems and enhanced training for staff.
The findings also confirmed the existence of examples of an inclusive culture at all levels
of the University, alongside the need to strengthen and clarify systems by confirming the
links between the management policy and the work of the officers and professors. An
inclusive institution should show uniform roles, responsibilities and compensation to the
representatives who are responsible for dyslexia, training for easy access and recognition
of consequences for the workload of staff.

At the level of the School of Education, despite the dyslexia deficit model, there is little
evidence of the practices of bias and discrimination against people with disabilities. The
Fuller model (Fuller et al., 2004) ensured a clear and practical way of mapping the
institution’s journey towards full participation, demonstrating that, although participants
at all levels were mostly willing travelers, the inconsistencies of the systems linking the

30
levels could potentially allow bias and discrimination practices against people with
disabilities to survive. Once these gaps are identified, they can be connected by promoting
the creation of a fully inclusive institution. Effective co-ordination between the academic
units, support units and central government units responsible for the evaluation is
required. This also requires the formal recognition of the special needs of the students in
the exams. Universities should identify the reasons for preventing a significant
proportion of dyslexic students from absorbing available support facilities and develop
strategies to address them. A case study at a Department of Computer Science at a
University of the United Kingdom, lasting more than 4 years, was conducted by Taylor et
al. (2009) to which 22 students took part in a total of about 80 students with disabilities.
The research was based on long-term case studies at this university. The tools of the study
were interviews/discussions and observation of staff and students, as well as the
examination of academic, official and technical documents on special education
provision. The data was related to how the students did with the teaching, evaluation,
and types of settings that were carried out. The findings showed that higher education
UK providers are required to have a variety of arrangements for students with dyslexia,
such as organized school-college transition or work to higher education, diagnosis,
assessment, teaching, as well as supervising/guiding students. The diagnosis of dyslexic
students must be carried out in a timely manner so that the planned grant can be
processed quickly and the necessary equipment or software delivered before the
beginning of the academic year. In addition, it is important to agree with each student
concerned which arrangements are appropriate for him or her, as it would be
inappropriate to make the same arrangements for any dyslexic student. Research
suggests that by providing appropriate settings in higher education students with
dyslexia can achieve similar results with their non-dyslexic peers (Taylor et al., 2009).
By studying the services and support measures used by higher education institutions
abroad, it could be said that they provide counselling services to all students. Students
with learning difficulties are provided with some facilities such as: modification of
teaching methods, exam arrangements, tutorials, supervision by a teacher for learning
difficulties, help with lecture notes, provision and use of technology aids, and use of the
library. Also, in some universities, assessment and diagnosis takes place within the
university, and allowances are provided. Assistance for notes includes securing notes
from lectures to dyslexic students, or help by a scribe for taking lecture notes, as well as
notes on coloured paper or in large fonts.
Open access days have been proven a good practice for universities in which they inform
the public about their studies and facilities in order to attract new students.
There is also the help line, the access centers and the national network of problem-solving
co-ordinators (Reid, 2003). Also important sources of information about the student's
difficulties are the completion of the paper application and the students’ interview for
their admittance to the institution. In addition, there is a special chapter on the facilities
provided for dyslexic students in the study guide or the university’s website. The
provision of counselling services during some difficult times is a very important support
for all students, especially those with dyslexia, in order to cope with intense work pace,

31
stressful situations such as exams, personal improvement such as strengthening their
self-esteem, in teaching skills, in their career orientation and in organizing their time.
Special arrangements for the exams include oral examinations, more time, examinations
in a separate room, and reading of exam questions by an assistant or their recording and
listening during the exam. The provision and use of technological aids involve laptops and
appropriate software, scanners, tape recorders, recorded books, colourful transparent
filters during reading, etc. Software that facilitates students with dyslexia includes
programs that convert audio to text without having to type or convert text to sound, that
is, the computer reads, text editors, spellcheck, dictionaries, electronic calendars, etc.
Library support includes help from the librarian and assistance in using the database as
well as access to resources.
Some universities have a separate library space for students with special needs. Teachers
modify their lectures by applying multi-sensory methods such as PowerPoint
presentations, use of large fonts, highlight the goals and main points of the lesson and
write them on the blackboard or in the presentation, paraphrase the same thing, provide
appropriate notes so that students can focus during the lecture, and use of examples
(Stampoltzis and Polychronopoulou, 2007), appropriate and accessible language in the
course books and lecture notes, assistance in assignments and the ability to learn from
the responsible professors and other faculty members (Reid, 2003). Teachers
responsible for students with dyslexia, according to the model of Griffiths et al. (2010),
are encouraged to observe the students and to refer them for evaluation earlier. It is
important that they do not feel that they have borne the whole burden but to be
supported effectively by the university and the staff. Effective guidance in practice is
central to the success of this model (Griffiths et al., 2010).
Matthews (2009) discussed the concerns expressed by university academics about how
to meet the needs of students with hidden disabilities in the classroom. She refers to the
social model of disability, which argues that universities should avoid medical labels to
describe the learning needs of students with difficulties, as well, and that they should
establish a diversity of inclusive teaching strategies as part of their daily practice.
Matthews (2009) highlighted the variability of policies and practices in promoting higher
education inclusion in the UK and the need for staff development for a more inclusive
educational system. She also stressed the need for the higher education institutions to
adapt for a more complete inclusion because by providing physical or technological
access for students with disabilities ensures that institutions are protected from
litigation. The survey also suggests measures such as designating specific university
professors who will be responsible for the policies and procedures relating to disability
and the adoption of individual learning programs for students with disabilities, which will
minimize their reliance on labels and the medical diagnosis assumptions telling teachers
everything they need to know about the needs of the students. Therefore, she suggested
that the social model of disability should present new paths towards a more inclusive
higher education (Matthews, 2009).
The classroom facilities for students with learning difficulties in higher education have
been investigated by Quinlan et al. (2012). Ten students, 19-29 years old, of a US

32
university participated in the semi-structured interviews. The nine had reading/writing
difficulties, two had difficulties in mathematics and four had attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The attitude of teachers towards students with learning
difficulties was classified into three categories: no facilities, formal facilities as defined by
law and facilities for all students. Although higher education institutions have a mandate
to facilitate students with learning difficulties, students have reported how some teachers
are tough, reluctant and provide no facilitation. Some others deny the existence of
students with difficulty, and in another case, they tell the student that he or she has no
difficulty and should not think poorly him or herself. Such cases cause reluctance to
students to expose their difficulty, or they delay their graduation, limit their academic
success and ultimately undermine their ability to use higher education to achieve
important goals in life. As far as the provision of formal facilities is concerned, some
teachers do not know how to implement them, while others do so in a way that students
feel discriminated and isolated. Although existing literature offers students strategies to
improve their efforts to find facilitation, it neglects to suggest ways for teachers to learn
how to facilitate students with learning difficulties. Since students are asked to disclose
their learning needs prior to their application for help, the teachers should also respond
to these needs.
Quinlan et al. (2012) proposed various techniques that could help not only dyslexic but
all students in their studies: a) the discovery of student interests would help to select
appropriate topics and examples; b) linking and applying theory to daily life; c) repeating
the course material visually and verbally; d) creating accessible sources, such as
recordings and slides, and making them available on the course webpage; e) determining
the course material and giving feedback to students with a repetition insertion before the
exams; f) defining and providing an outline of the learning objectives of the course; g)
providing more office hours for the convenience of students. According to the findings of
the research by Taylor et al. (2009), students with dyslexia should be provided with
arrangements during lectures such as: a) lecture notes/workshops and exam questions
should be written in large fonts, because this can facilitate reading; b) coloured test
papers because it is believed to soften the symptoms associated with visual impairment.
The use of coloured paper may be more preferred than the use of dark lenses, which some
students feel uncomfortable and embarrassed to wear; c) laptops for
lectures/courses/workshops; d) group or individual enhancing teaching for the purpose
of help with basic mathematics and essay writing; e) use of a virtual learning environment
with the help of the blackboard because it provides the information sources to all
students before the lectures, which prevents the embarrassment of some dyslexic
students when they are given notes on coloured paper and also contributes to an
inclusive curriculum; (f) provision of more time for the assignments to be submitted.
Professors should be aware that dyslexic students are making great efforts for seemingly
simple tasks, so they need support and understanding to make the most of their abilities.
It is important to provide more time for the exam, as well as the recruitment of a scribe
for the written exam and alternative evaluation methods.

33
All students considered that they could complete all the required assignments of their
courses. However, they may have needed a little more time or some alternatives (such as
computer use in examinations). The comparison of the dyslexic students’ grades with
their non-dyslexic peers suggests that the facilities provided resulted in approximately
equivalent performance.

The interesting finding that emerged was the highest grades obtained by dyslexic
students who used the right of the extra time compared to dyslexic students who did not
use the extra time, which is 25% more exam time (Taylor et al., 2009). This finding
suggests that extra time in the exam was beneficial for students, as there were no visible
differences in the academic qualifications of the two groups when they entered the
university (Taylor et al., 2009). Griffiths et al. (2010) presented a case study and
concluded that the continuing education/training of the university staff and engagement
on raising the awareness on special education issues, as well as the special preparation
of counsellors and liaison professors, are vital for students with disabilities before
beginning their placement. Cooperation with other universities and institutions at
national and international level leads to information and dissemination of good practice.
The cooperation of students with special needs who have been motivated to make full use
of their potential, with university professors and services is necessary in order to develop
a dynamic, flexible and tailored model that will benefit them largely. The first phase of
the tripartite model of Griffiths et al. (2010) relates to the disclosure of the disability by
students as well as the identification and assessment of these needs. This is why the
university organizes an open public information day before enrolling in the university,
informing prospective students and among them those who are wondering if they could
meet the requirements of the study.
In this case study, a prospective student communicated her disability and then the
university invited her to a nursing skills session to analyze some of the related tasks, such
as making the bed, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and injection technique, in order to
identify early possible areas that will require reasonable adaptation in practice. After the
student’s work was positively assessed, she was referred to the Department of Health and
the Disability Service for further advice and evaluation. After the evaluation process, the
student was offered an unconditional place in the program, which she accepted. The
second phase concerns the creation of support systems and procedures in practice. In
particular there was a confidential communication between those responsible for future
studies and the development of the student. Also, the Disability Service and the placement
team discussed the needs of the placement and secured critical services such as: colored
paper and overlays, special equipment, a quiet room to write notes, counselling,
additional skills training, as well as flexible working hours during the placement with
frequent breaks.
In order to ensure proper support, the relevant professor and counsellor were informed
of each placement and counselling was provided by the counsellor who received
appropriate preparation, such as a leaflet prepared by the Disability Service, as well as
support for the student to participate fully in the learning environment. In the third

34
phase, the placement team, the Disability Service and the coordinator of the placements
reviewed and defined alternative strategies. They reviewed the student’s progress on the
action plan and the reasonable adjustments agreed at the start of the placement. The
fourth phase consisted of the development of detailed plans and support models and the
creation of an information base. Based on the student experience and support teams’
experiences, from pre-registration to graduation, a pathway analysis was carried out to
develop and implement detailed action plans and procedures for different student
situations, contributing to the development of the practice models for enhancing critical
decisions on reasonable adjustments. The fifth phase included a critical evaluation and a
review to identify which aspects of the support were functional and which not in order to
effectively manage the support framework for students.
The sixth phase focused on the review of the support strategy. Through the critical
discussion, the team examined the support strategy and the student was invited to
participate and express her point of view. The tools used by the university to improve
disability awareness included the following activities: a) annual counselling; b) disability
awareness workshops; c) information for counsellors/mentors in a virtual learning
environment; d) special leaflets with advice from the university’s disability service; and
e) the publication of a journal with guideline issues (Griffiths et al., 2010).

35
Chapter3

3.1 FCE CAMBRIDGE B2 Certification and Examination Framework

The features of dyslexia do not manifest to all people to the same extent. In some areas,
the difficulties faced by a student with dyslexia may be more severe than in others. Each
person is different and this diversity must be taken into account in dyslexia as well as the
age of the person, early/specialized learning intervention and other factors (family and
school). In addition, it should be noted that there are languages that are “obscure” (that
is, phonemes and graphemes matching is not constant), such as in English, and that is
why it is considered to create additional difficulties in learning it as a foreign language.
On the other hand, French and German are characterized as phonologically “translucent”,
while in terms of phonological coherence, Spanish and Italian are easier to learn
(Crombie, 2000).
Interlinguistic intervention refers to the direct influence of the structure of the native
language to a person, which interferes with the learning of a foreign language, often
leading to mistakes (Shore & Sabatini, 2009). Sparks (1995) first introduced the
“Linguistic Coding Differences Hypothesis”, according to which poor phonological
awareness or phonological-spelling processing is often the reason why dyslexic students
have a weakness in learning a foreign language (Knudsen, 2012). According to this
hypothesis, even the slightest difficulty in the processing of the native language will come
to light when learning a foreign language and this explains why even students who have
compensated their dyslexia through the use of learning strategies may need to re-learn
these skills when they try to learn a foreign language (Nijakowska, 2010; Schneider,
2009).
In addition to phonological awareness, morphological awareness and syntactic
awareness constitute linguistic awareness, since the morphological processing of a word
presupposes the simultaneous processing of phonological, syntactic, semantic and
spelling information. It is therefore expected that dyslexic students will face difficulties
in the field of morphology (Helland & Kaasa, 2004). It should also be noted that a large
percentage of students with dyslexia experience difficulties in the short-term (Peer &
Reed, 2003), the working, and the long-term memory, but also in the speed of processing
information (Reed, 2005).
Students with dyslexia appear to have difficulties in the initial stage of verbal coding of
information and it is necessary to systematically check the various dimensions of the
memory’s function (Polychroni, 2011). According to Reed (2005), learning through the
auditory pathway is perhaps the weakest way of learning for children with dyslexia.
Instead, visual and kinesthetic stimuli help more. Thus, the multi-sensory approach to
learning is considered necessary for the teaching of dyslexic students (Reed, 2009; Pappa,
2013). Most of the current research studies in the literature examine children with

36
English as their native language and are exploring areas of difficulty that these children
face in learning foreign languages.
The way to prove one's knowledge in a foreign language is mainly by gaining a level of
language certificate. All certificates today are based on the six (6) levels of the Common
European Framework for Languages, levels A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2.
The initial stages of learning a foreign language are those of A1 and A2 where the user is
a basic scholar, with more limited basic knowledge. That is, at level A1, the user can, for
example, be able to understand and use familiar daily basic phrases to meet specific
needs, such as recommending others, asking and answering questions about personal
information. In general, he can only talk in a simple way only when his interlocutor speaks
slowly and clearly. The A2 level certificate user can understand sentences and phrases
that are often used in everyday life and relate, for example, to basic personal and family
information, to the market and to work. It can communicate simple and common
obligations requiring simple and direct exchange of information on familiar matters.
Finally, he can simply describe events of the past, his future and his immediate
environment.
On levels B1 and B2 the user is independent. In particular, at level B1, the user's abilities
are to understand the main points that are clearly presented to him regarding work,
school or leisure time. It can handle situations that are likely to arise during a trip to an
area where the language is spoken and produce plain text related to topics that are known
to him or which concern him. Finally, he can describe experiences and events, dreams,
hopes and aspirations, summarize his point of view as well as describe his plans. On the
next level, in B2, the user is first able to understand the basic information of a more
complex text, for specific and abstract topics. He can then talk with enough comfort and
spontaneity with natural language speakers. He is also able to produce clear text with
details on a variety of topics and express his point of view, giving the pros and cons to
each of them.
The final stage that one can reach by learning a foreign language is level C1 and C2 where
the user is capable of too many things. In the first case (C1), the user can understand more
demanding and lengthy texts and express themselves with comfort and spontaneity in all
sorts of issues. It can also use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and
professional purposes. Finally, he is able to produce clear, well-structured, detailed texts
on complex issues, formulated with organization, consistency and consistency. At the
next level, C2, the user can generally more easily understand almost everything he hears
or reads. It can make summaries of information from different oral or written sources,
and organize them using coherent arguments. Finally, he can express himself
spontaneously, with great ease and clarity, in every kind of circumstance.
The renewed B2 First for Schools exam consists of four test modules:
1) Section: Reading and Use of English (1 hour 15 minutes). Content: 7 parts / 52
questions.
Students should be able to understand the content of a set of texts, as well as the structure
and views expressed in them. The texts come from sources familiar to schoolchildren,

37
such as magazines, articles, fiction and advertisements. Students are examined in the
proper use of English with exercises focusing on vocabulary and grammar.
2) Section: Writing (1 hour 20 minutes). Content: 2 parts.
Students are asked to write two texts. The first, which is mandatory for everyone, is a
140-190-word report. For the second text, candidates must choose one of the following:
article, email / letter, essay, critique or short story 140-190 words.

3) Section: Listening (about 40 minutes). Content: 4 parts / 30 questions.

Students should be able to watch and understand a series of recordings, such as news
programs, public announcements, and other sources that respond to the interests of
school-age students.

4) Section: Speaking (14 minutes per pair of candidates). Content: 4 parts.

This is a face-to-face exam where one or two candidates and the examiner are present.
Students need to demonstrate their ability to communicate in English by answering the
examiner's oral questions, making a dialogue with the other candidate or speaking for
themselves (https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/en/exams-and-tests/first- for-schools
/ exam-format /).

The British Council is committed to providing all students/candidates with open and
equal access to opportunities. For candidates with hearing, speech, visual or motor
problems, there are special arrangements. Similar arrangements are also provided for
candidates with learning difficulties, such as dyslexia.
Special provisions may include: longer exam time, breaks with supervisor’s presence,
alternative test methods, e.g. in Braille or with large fonts, wheelchair access, a copyist or
scribe (someone who types the words dictated), Listening exercises with lip reading.
A prerequisite for the above special provisions is the presentation of a medical certificate
by the relevant doctor. The medical certificate must be legible, report precisely the
problem and needs, be an original document and bear a header with the information or
official stamp and the name and specialty, as well as the signature of the registered
doctor.
For candidates with learning difficulties (e.g. dyslexia), additional criteria apply. The most
important are: a) medical certificates must have been issued up to two years before the
date of the examinations and b) a sample of the handwriting may also be requested,
specifically a short-handwritten report in English.
The information collected through this procedure is used in order to apply the special
provisions that are appropriate for each candidate. There are a number of special
arrangements that can be envisaged, such as: a) extra time since it may take longer to
complete a test unit, thus extra time is provided by 25% more than normal. For example,
if a module lasts one hour, the student will have 15 extra minutes to complete the test.
The extra time may exceed 25% if deemed necessary. b) Breaks with a Supervisor’s

38
presence where along with the provision for extra time, or instead of it, there can be
breaks with the presence of a supervisor. In this case, the student may stop the exam and
take a break in another room. During the break there is a supervisor’s presence. This can
help if concentration problems occur.
More specifically the manuals of the exams mention:
• Candidates with specific learning difficulties are also normally allowed 25% extra
time but may apply for more if their difficulty is severe.
• Candidates with special requirements (including candidates with specific learning
difficulties) may apply to write their answers using a computer if they are unable to write
their answers by hand. If using a screen-reading program, candidates may not use any
spellcheck, grammar check or thesaurus functions.

• For reasons of test security, in the first instance, the exam centre’s hardware
should be used e.g. PC, laptop. However, use of the candidate’s own laptop may be
permitted where necessary, if all security requirements can be shown to have been
complied with (please refer to the exam centre for further advice).
• Candidates may also apply to use screen magnifier/CCTV systems and other
reading devices as an alternative (or in addition) to printed question papers.
• Candidates with specific learning difficulties are not allowed to have an
amanuensis but may apply for a copier (transcriber) if their handwriting is difficult to
read. This means that someone copies (makes a transcript of) the candidate’s work at the
end of the exam. The candidate will read out their answers to the copier, including all the
punctuation. The copier will write down an exact copy of the answers, including any
mistakes in grammar, spelling or punctuation.
• Modified Large Print versions are for candidates with visual difficulties, and
candidates who have a physical difficulty which makes it hard for them to read smaller
print, or focus on pictures/photographs. Candidates with specific learning difficulties e.g.
dyslexia, and other disabilities may also request enlarged material.
• Modified Large Print versions of Reading and Use of English papers contain
adapted material, a simplified layout and standardized fonts
(https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/Images/170888-guidance-notes-for-special-
requirements-reading-and-use-of-english-tests.pdf).

39
Chapter 4

4.1 Methodology: “Case study”

This research follows the case study approach. When the research interest is transferred
to a specific, complex and functional situation, then the approach of case study is used to
characterize the research strategy. The case is deliberate, it has space-time limits,
functional parts and its own identity. The case is usually people, groups, programs,
educational institutions or bodies and, more rarely, events and procedures (Stake, 1995).
The native case study that will be used in this research, focuses on a particular person,
group, event or organization. The research interest arises from the need for the
researcher to learn as much as possible about the specific case (Hancock & Algozzine,
2014).
Case study as a research strategy is used in a number of research fields. Economics,
sociology and education are mentioned. The evaluation of programs appears mainly from
the 1970s onwards. The criticism of the traditional forms of evaluation and the
experimental approaches, as well as the emergence of the qualitative methodology,
enriched the theoretical and methodological scope of the evaluation of the programs,
enabling researchers-evaluators to use it more and more (Crowe et al., 2011).
A case study has its own research design (Stake, 1995). Although there are differences
between researchers, mainly due to their different scientific and epistemological starting
points, most of them agree that during the design phase decisions are made on what will
be explored, for what purpose and with what criteria the success will be judged
investigation. Particular importance attaches to the definition of the case and the unit of
analysis, the questions under consideration, the collection, analysis and interpretation of
the data and the writing of the evaluation report. An equally important role for the
successful outcome of the evaluation exercise is the provision of access clearance, the
organization of the first visit to the field, the engagement with the actors, the investigation
of their intentions regarding the publication of the study and the confidentiality
conditions, the allocation of resources and the role the evaluator will attach to it (Crowe
et al., 2011).

40
5. Thoughts

5.1The importance of an English language Certificate

In today’s fast-growing multilingual and globalized world, English Language

is universally spoken and it is essential for all young people to be able to prove their
English written and oral communication skills, by holding a certificate. English is the
most widely learned language. In Europe in 2005 more than the two-thirds (67.3 per
cent) of students in the Primary education studied at least one foreign language , in 2014
this was risen up to 83.8 per cent, in Secondary school 97.3 per cent of the students study
English, which in some countries like Greece or Italy, is taught as a mandatory first foreign
language in state schools. Exchanging populations, global citizenship, studying abroad
and world wide open work spaces, define the English Language certificate as a necessity
since it is the key access to Educational Institutions and Working fields.

5.2 English Language Certificate

Children in Greece start learning English from the age of six or seven years old. The
variation of learning time needed to complete the learning process and sit for the first
English certificate depends on the students’ personality, educational needs, the
methodology, private or public-school attendance and usually takes up to seven years of
preparation for the upper intermediate level (B2). Costs include educational materials,
private tutors, schools and last but not least fees to participate in testing as to acquire the
desirable level certification. There is a large variety of certificates which prove the
proficiency of English language depending the usage and the orientation. These tests are
standardized and are taken in over 3.000 test centers in 20 countries, including
universities and private language schools. They are tip- tailored designed to address a
massive number of populations and usually the fees start from seventy euros rising up
to three hundred and more. Based on a research done by the Private Teacher’s Union,
Greeks pay annually the amount of 15 million euros for fees while 160 thousand students
sit for the English language exams. Students might pass the exams but in case they do not
they have to pay again as to participate one more or even more times for the certification.
All students who have taken English courses can sit for the English certificate since these
tests are made to assess all school population, the same test evaluates the knowledge
of students who suffer from Dyslexia -which is defined as a learning disability - whom
difficulties are well known world widely and have been written down.
It is notified that dyslexic students struggle to overcome their educational difficulties in
their first language through their academic years, making the acquisition of a foreign
language even harder for them. The extraordinary here is that when these students are
sitting for their school exams in their native language they are supported by various

41
accommodations whereas when they have to prove their acquisition of a foreign language
these accommodations are absent or limited down.
After a request made to the Cambridge Assessment to provide information about the
number of dyslexic students who have passed the FCE B2 the last ten years the answer
was that due to students’ personal data they do not keep any records.

5.3 Consideration

An Educational Assessment Institution should keep records as to identify all test -takers’
needs and not to exclude by any means any potential student who has educational
difficulties and decides to participate in an English language test. In any case evaluation
tests and their policies should be examined regarding their content, context, correctness
and fairness among student populations. Measuring student’s success or failure
ensures an equity education environment which ensures that every student has an equal
chance to succeed and develop. Educational policies should consider equitable inclusion
for all people and reassure that they are assessed in a fair matter. Students not being fairly
assessed by institutions- which define their policies as fair and equal towards all school
population- create a Societal injustice that affects 700 million people worldwide since
according to Dyslexia Action (2017) around 16 % of the population or 11.5 million people
experience dyslexia.

42
6. Problem statement

Dyslexic students sit for the English language certificate FCE B2 for schools trying to
succeed and work hard to achieve their goal while test designers and test providers
continue to assess them in the same way as they assess students with no educational
difficulties. Not having found any data on how dyslexic students perform during an
English language exam this thesis aims to investigate whether Dyslexic students can pass
the FCE B2 English certificate for schools, and if not , if they are fairly and equally
assessed by the standardized test which is designed to address all kinds of test takers.

6.1 Results

Based on their scores in Reading and Use of English and Listening parts of the mock
assessments it is shown that:

The students diagnosed with Dyslexia did not pass none of the three mock tests of the
FCE B2 test. The structure of this test cannot facilitate dyslexic students due to its tasks
which demand strong working memorization skills and correct spelling. The extra length
of time given to them was not efficient to support their needs as to achieve their goal. The
FCE B2 English certificate seems like it cannot address in a fairly manner all test takers
and in particularly students with dyslexia, due to the complexity of the test.

43
7. The case

This is a case study of twenty-four students who were assessed for the
FCE b2 paper tests.

7.1 Sample – Participants

In this research the participants were twenty-four students in the 2nd grade of a private
Middle School in Athens, Greece, among them were six students who have been diagnosed
with dyslexia by the public sector KEDDY. This group of pupils was selected because they
were in the same age and had a common educational training since they all attended the
same school and class since the 1st grade of Primary school. The participants had been
trained from an early age to take the Cambridge examination. They have all practiced
with the same material, taught by the same teachers and learnt how to apply the
methodology needed to achieve their goal. The students have already sat for the KET and
PET Cambridge tests during Primary school and have been familiarized with this kind of
evaluation and examination from an early age so they were aware of all the exam
procedure. In the first and second grade of Middle School they were intensively taught,
guided and practiced on writing FCE tests. The school provided students with the latest
educational materials and a consistent curriculum which aimed to their successful
achievement of the FCE B2 certification. The students were considered as the perfect
sample class of a case study for all the reasons mentioned above because they had a well-
known student profile which excluded any hidden surprises that could mislead the
research.

7.2 Reasons of this research

The interest for this research was triggered, when the school asked the Cambridge
Assessment on behalf of the parents, what kind of accommodation is provided for their
children who had Dyslexia, during the FCE examination and the answer was just an
amount of 25 % extra time.
Dyslexia is world widely accepted and recognized as a learning disability and its effects
have also been acknowledged. Teachers are been constantly educated through seminars
and master degrees on how to treat, support and encourage dyslexic students, schools
have changed their ways of evaluating these students and teachers have adapted and
reformed their evaluation procedures as to meet their student’s needs. Accommodation
have been introduced to all school levels and universities , awareness has been applied
on how to provide these accommodation and address students during exams .For
example in Greece all Dyslexic students are examined in both Greek and English classes

44
orally even when they sit for the National Greek Exams which define in which university
a student will be accepted a Dyslexic student is evaluated orally and this is a right given
to them by the law according to No. 28722/C2 Ministerial Decision “Examination of
students with Disabilities and Special Educational Needs of Daily and Evening Junior High
Schools” (GG B / 276 / 16-3-2010 .
In this case these six pupils would either participate in a written or a computerized exam
for the FCE b2 for schools, like not having any educational needs although officially
recognized by a public sector (KEDDY) since this examination frame does not take into
consideration their educational needs. Clearly, as these students have been trained for
only one and specific way of being evaluated, they chose to sit for the FCE examination
because they do not want to differ from the rest of their classmates or be discriminated
due to their educational needs.
Knowing all of the above , the concern was if these students would be able to overcome
their difficulties and pass the three mock FCE B2 exams. Seeing this matter from a social
academic view a limited accessibility to dyslexic students to this kind of exam could lead
to labeling the Cambridge certificate as the most prestigious one to have among students
that would create a social academic gap in school environments between the elaborated
students and the restricted ones. Academic institutions and organizations are supposed
to open roads and build bridges for every student to be able to have an equal and safe
access to language qualification and not to create social discrimination.
While the performance of students diagnosed with Dyslexia when participating in foreign
language examinations is not fully investigated this thesis was an opportunity to raise
awareness about this matter.

7.3 Material

The students were given three FCE mock tests photocopied from the Cambridge
University Press Test Book based on the ones given to a real exam participation,
The first test was given on December, the second test on February and the third test on
April. The time length left in between these tests was to identify any score changes,
monitor process, compare different scores, observe difficulties and take into
consideration factors such as fatigue, stress and nervousness that could alter the results.
The research focused particularly on the task “Reading & Use of English” which consists
of seven parts and the Listening part which consists of four parts .In a case study three
tests would provide a better observation on scores .The reason of not handing out
questionnaires was to monitor the whole evaluating test process .Analyzing the
student’s performance could help to understand their challenges and identify whether
evaluating changes should be applied in the standardized test , or more accommodation
to be provided during the FCE B2 test .

45
7.4 Setting

The FCE examination has taken place within the school environment in real time exams,
students were seated in the same way when they sit for the real exams, detailed and clear
instructions were outlined, procedures were applied and testing sequence was like in an
actual FCE b2 exam with time limitations and teachers monitoring.

7.5 Case study

A group of 24 students (six of them diagnosed with dyslexia) were given three mock FCE
B2tests (Reading & Use of English and Listening) in order to investigate how well they
perform in this kind of exam.

7.6 Strengths of the Case study

Having in hand the material used in this case study and the scores of the students, it is
feasible to identify the parts of the exam that were difficult for the students to overcome
due to Dyslexia. In addition, knowing that students have been trained the same way and
monitoring their eight-year educational journey from Primary school to the second grade
of Gymnasium, makes this research distinguished and notable due to the students’
continuing progress. The dyslexic students did not feel discriminated or observed since
all test-takers were participating in the FCE mock tests.

7.7 Limitations of the Case study

A research may suffer limitations or factors that cannot be identified due to human
nature. In this case , even though students have been taught the same way with same
material and methodology and have been together all the way from the 1st grade
of Primary school till the 2nd grade of Gymnasium school , date to this research , some
students could have been taken private English language lessons in the privacy of their
homes without the researcher being aware of, in this case performance or test scores
could be altered only in a positive way and not in a negative way by been led to low scores.
Another limitation here can be that we cannot possibly have or compare official test
material given in an actual testing, since they are never given or shown to publicity in
contrast with the ones that the researcher used for evaluating the test takers. The tests
that were used for the case study had been photocopied from a Cambridge University
Press test book.

46
“Reading and Use of English “

8. (December) Test 1
The scores of the dyslexic students are in red and as it is shown they have the lowest
marks of the group between 7 % and almost 14 % in total in their first mock test.

8.1 (February) Test 2

There was a slight marking increase from 8 to 21 in the second mock test .

47
8.2 (April) Test 3

There is a significant increase from 15 to 25 total score in the third mock test but students
were not able to succeed the test.

Listening

8.3 (December) Test 1

Dyslexic students scored from 9 to 15.

48
8.4 (February) Test 2

There was an increase from 12 to 19 total score.

8.5 (April) Test 3

There was an improvement from 13 to 20 total score.

49
8.6 Analysis

After data collection, it was shown that students with Dyslexia although they have had
increased their scores during the three mock FCE tests, still did not succeed none of the
examinations, due to their learning disability and the difficult nature of the tasks that
comes in contrast with their needs.

8.6 Reading and use of English

In the Reading and use of English section, parts 2, 4 and 6 were the most strenuous ones
to solve due to their nature.
In part 2 the students had to read the text and think of the word which best fits each gap,
this particular task demands a strong memorization and correct spelling. It is well known
that students having dyslexia lack of these skills since they have weak working memory
and do spelling errors.

In part 4 students are given an original sentence, a single word in capitals and in bold and
a second sentence with a gap. Here they have to use the single word without changing its
form and also add up to four more words to fill the gap, so that the second sentence has a
similar meaning to the first sentence, known as word transformation.
Grammatical phenomena such as modal verbs and semi modal verbs, phrasal verbs, multi
– word verbs, transformations from active voice to the passive, questions on verb
patterns and transformation from direct speech to reported speech are required as this
task to be answered and correct spelling. All these grammar patterns mentioned above
command for a strong memorizing ability and fast thinking skills.

50
 In part 6, six sentences have been removed from an article and the students have to
choose the one which best fits each gap which means that the reader needs to hold on to
information long enough to put the sentences together and understand the text, a
demanding ,even overwhelming task for students with dyslexia. It could be defined that
these tasks are prohibited or made in such way that exclude students with dyslexia
making a new societal norm of a prestige certificate that only few can hold and which
classifies people. Overall, students with dyslexia did show an improvement in the above
parts during the second and third mock test but this it was not enough as for them to pass
the mock tests.

51
8.7 Listening section part 2

52
8.7 Listening Analysis

Analyzing the students’ scores, it was realized that parts 2 and 3 were difficult since
students had to fill gaps and memorize words by hearing a monologue. Both parts of the
listening demanded strong memorization skills, a great ability of concentration and a
correct spelling capacity, skills which in the case of these students are affected by
Dyslexia. However, all the above do not imply that they have a lack of communication in
the English language or cannot apply it. The formation of these test seems to examine
skills and not communicative language. Having the ability to remember a word or write in
correct spelling does not show a student’s fluency of a foreign language. Maybe it did
decades before but learning by heart does not appeal nowadays. When lots of ink and
paper has been invested on theories and ways of supporting students during their school
years, less has been invested on students’ performance while being assessed and which
kind of accommodations should be provided. The students with dyslexia are not fairly
and equally assessed based on the principles of equity and opportunity in education. In a
more socially view this kind of test does not take into consideration their needs and
strains, the consequences of the test takers’ failure in the economical, psychological and
social angle that has a significant impact on them and society.

53
9. Conclusion

The Educational industry demands more exams which will lead to more certificates as
to serve more students, for this reason there is a need for observing and monitoring the
difficulties that students with dyslexia face while sitting in a language exam, while
focusing in the design of tests which can address dyslexic students in a more fairly way .
This study was able to identify a test deficiency and ring a bell to the ones who are
responsible to line up regulations, reformations, approaches and create exams as to
decide if changes should take place in the way Dyslexic students are evaluated.
It tried to show the challenges that students diagnosed with dyslexia face during their
participation in an English examination, where the majority of the tasks are based in
strong thinking skills, correct spelling, and complicated grammar phenomena in which
dyslexic students are weak to perform , still , they go through this hostile way of being
examined .
Low test performance and scoring were associated with students’ skills being affected
by Dyslexia such as slow pace reading, incorrect spelling, and weak memorization. The
formation of these tasks is in contrast with their educational difficulties and needs and
this results to their failure. Filling word gaps, have correct spelling, strong concentration
skills and filling grammar phenomena, elements of which typically FCE B2 is composed
of cannot be supported by the students without having the right accommodations for
support.
Standardized tests automatically block dyslexic students from a good performance
leading them to failure when they are assessed to a foreign language.

54
10. Suggestions

All students should be evaluated in a manner that is suitable for them as to be able
to respond back proving their knowledge, when there is not any barrier then knowledge
can be fairly performed.
Test creators should introduce task changes to evaluate Dyslexic students either by
creating new tasks that will neither level down the Academic outcomes nor challenge
them by targeting in skills which lack to have due to their learning disability.
Another solution could be to evaluate them in a computerized form and accommodate
them with tools that empower their weak skills such as a word processor and simplified
instructions appearing in the one side of the screen. After all being able to communicate
efficiently and fluently in a foreign language has not so much to do with correct spelling,
many native speakers do spell mistakes but this does not lead them to an academic
isolation or being discriminated by a testing frame.
Having in mind how well-established educational institutions manifest their sensitivity
towards diversity, they should take into consideration all groups of students by
reassuring a safe testing environment for all.
Ending this thesis, it should be underlined and remembered that an Educational
Certificate system should not exclude by any mean any potential student with
Educational difficulties who decides and has the social right to sit in a language test.
Educators, test creators and Institutions should discover, design and explore all possible
evaluating formulas that ensure correctness of their content and fairness among all
student populations, measuring success or failure by equal standards so as to build an
equal environment for human development.

55
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https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/en/exams-and-tests/first- for-schools / exam-
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requirements-reading-and-use-of-english-tests.pdf

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12. Appendix
Scoring tables.

Reading and Use of English test 1 Listening test 1

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Test 2

Test 3

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