WORK OF CROATIAN LANGUAGE TEACHERS WITH STUDENTS WITH SPECIFIC DIFFICULTIES IN READING AND WRITING

Although teacher competencies are acquired during initial training in faculties of education, among which methodological competencies have a special place, many teachers are not trained to work with students with specific learning difficulties and do not know how to deal with them in the classroom. Research on specific learning difficulties has begun recently as the symptoms of such students have been gradually explored and efforts have been made to adapt teaching methods to each student. The purpose of this paper is to explain the specific learning difficulties - dyslexia and dysgraphia - and to describe the ways in which teachers can work with students who suffer from these difficulties. A survey was conducted to investigate how Croatian language teachers adapt their work to students with reading and writing difficulties. The teachers’ awareness of the students’ difficulties, the way they prepare teaching materials, the use of teaching methods when working with these students, the way they give work instructions, the way they check their knowledge, and effective examples of teaching students with specific reading and writ- ing difficulties were investigated. The sample included 40 Croatian language teachers at primary and secondary level of education. The results are generally satisfactory, and it can be said that teachers’ handling of students with these difficulties in teaching language expression is good, although additional training could improve the quality.