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 The teachers, health professionals and parents have difficulty in dealing with learners who do not recognise the letters and the sounds of the alphabet or phonics, and therefore, struggle to write one simple sentence.

Teachers, educational psychologists and parent participants experienced that most of the learners with barriers to reading often read from memory.

Teacher participants pointed out that the learners who do not recognise the letters of the alphabet, sounds and phonics are struggling to read one simple sentence. These learners often omit letters and sounds, experience difficulty in breaking up words that they do not recognise. They further read word-for-word, without understanding what they read, and then they cannot recall it. They also cannot pronounce simple words and skip difficult words, while reading.

Teacher participants feel frustrated because they feel they are not equipped to help them. Teacher participant 8 stated: “I am teaching these learners in the best way I

know, but I am not sure if I am doing more harm than good, if we can just get some guidelines from the Department in how to help these learners in our class”. Teacher

partipant 6 said: “The learner sometimes experiences difficulty to see or recognise

the letters of the words correctly and then has to be referred for an eye test. If the eyes are the problem, the learner will get spectacles and then the teacher works from there.”

In this regard, the educational psychologists indicated that there are many devices that learners with barriers to reading sometimes need to support them, for example, spectacles or hearing aids. Educational psychologist participant 17 stated: “These

learners should be accommodated in terms of their weaknesses or their barriers, so that they can function optimally at their own level.” Educational psychologist

participant 15 said: “We try to give these learners individual programmes, to help

them learn the basic reading skills, but this is not always possible without giving assistance to the teacher to occupy the rest of the class.”

Parent participants further indicated that they feel disappointed when the learners struggle to recognise or sound words independently.

Parent participant 22 said: “I feel stressful when my child cannot recognise simple

words or some of the letters of the alphabet.” Parent participant 31 said: “I feel worried, what is going to happen to him one day when he is an adult and he still cannot read? This is my biggest concern that he is going to be dependent on other people because of his reading problem.”

In this regard, Wearmouth, Soler and Reid (2002:1) indicated that learning to read is the first stage in becoming literate. According to Broun and Oelwein (2007:11), as indicated in Chapter Three (page 155, point 3.5), the current approach to reading instruction takes into account learning the alphabet, the sequence of the letters, and the sound or symbol associations needed to acquire the skills for learning to read. Starrett (2007:31-32) argues that children have to learn the shape and form of individual letters before they can start to read written words, as indicated in Chapter Three (page 154, point 3.5).

Haager, Dimino and Windmeuller (2007:12) further state that word recognition is the ability to look at a word and automatically produce its pronunciation. Lewis and Ellis (2006:81) argue that children who spell words as they are in their heads do not have any phonological problem, but rather a limited knowledge of the spelling rules.

Furthermore, as indicated in Chapter Three (page 104, point 3.1), reading has to be acquired and must be taught; our brains are not “tuned in” for reading, as opposed to the spoken language that is automatic and natural (Blaunstein and Lyon, 2006:9). They further argue that most learners can learn to read when they are provided with teachers who are trained, have effective instructional programmes and strong educational leadership (Blaunstein and Lyon, 2006:8).

As indicated in Chapter Three (page 105, point 3.1), reading – in the Webster dictionary – is defined as”… to look at so as to understand the meaning of something written or printed” (Broun and Oelwein 2007:11).

Lewis and Doorlaag (2003:229), as indicated in Chapter Three (page 105, point 3.1), further state that word recognition and comprehension are the two most important sub-skills in reading.

As indicated in Chapter Three (page 130, point 3.2.10), children need to know how to divide unfamiliar words mentally into syllables, in order to pronounce them. If they cannot do this, then they need more help in reading (Starrett, 2007:88).

According to Kruger and Adams (1998:56), the behaviour, the environment and personal factors all influence one another in learning how to read.

According to Santrock (2004:74), some childrens‟ families live in poverty; others, are economically disadvantaged; the parents frequently work late, and all these circumstances affect the learner‟s development and influence learners in and outside the classroom.

As indicated in Chapter Three (page 104, point 3.1), people are naturally born to process the spoken word; the written word, on the other hand, is a culturally determined skill that has to be taught and learned (Lewis and Ellis, 2006:23).

From the above views of the teachers and the literature, it becomes clear that the learners who cannot read one simple sentence, lack the basic reading skills. Furthermore, the learners who are experiencing difficulty in recognising the letters of the alphabet, sounds and phonics are struggling to read one simple sentence. It is therefore apparent, for teachers to be effective, that an instructional programme is needed in word recognition, sounds, phonics, word-for-word reading and comprehension.