Phonological Difficulties in Spanish Dyslexic Children Learning English as a Foreign Language: A Case Study

FACULTAD DE FILOLOGÍA GRADO EN ESTUDIOS INGLESES TRABAJO DE FIN DE GRADO CURSO 2024/ 2025 TÍTULO: Phonological Difficulties in Spanish Dyslexic Children Learning English as a Foreign Language: A Case Study AUTOR/A: Paloma García León TUTOR/A: María Heliodora Cuenca Villarín Fecha: 28 de mayo de 2025 Vº Bº del Tutor Firma: Firmado GARCIA LEON PALOMA - 20502927Z Firmado digitalmente por GARCIA LEON PALOMA - 20502927Z Fecha: 2025.05.27 22:12:22 +02'00' TABLE OF CONTENTS 0. ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................... 1 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 1 2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ................................................................ 3 2.1. What is dyslexia? ...................................................................................... 3 2.2. Phonological Deficit Theory ..................................................................... 5 2.3. Individual differences and its variables. Types of dyslexia ..................... 6 2.4. Phonological awareness ............................................................................ 8 2.5. Linguistic transfers ................................................................................... 9 2.6. Emotional and social impact .................................................................. 11 3. METHOD ...................................................................................................... 12 3.1. Screening Test ......................................................................................... 12 3.1.1. Participants .................................................................................. 13 3.1.2. Speech Materials .......................................................................... 13 3.1.3. Procedure ..................................................................................... 14 3.2. Intervention Programme ........................................................................ 14 3.2.1. Participant .................................................................................... 14 3.2.2. Speech Materials .......................................................................... 14 3.2.2.1. Individual Pre-Test................................................................ 15 3.2.3. Procedure ..................................................................................... 16 3.3. Post-Test .................................................................................................. 17 3.3.1. Speech Materials .......................................................................... 18 3.3.2. Procedure ..................................................................................... 18 4. RESULTS ...................................................................................................... 18 4.1. Screening Test ......................................................................................... 18 4.2. Individual Pre-Test ................................................................................. 20 4.3. Intervention Programme and Post-Test ................................................ 22 5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS .......................................................... 24 6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................... 27 7. REFERENCES .............................................................................................. 27 8. APPENDICES ............................................................................................... 30 8.1. Appendix I............................................................................................... 30 Speech Materials for the English Screening Test ........................ 30 8.2. Appendix II ............................................................................................. 32 Speech Materials for the Spanish Screening Test ............................. 32 8.3. Appendix III............................................................................................ 34 Speech Materials for the individual Pre-Test.............................. 34 8.4. Appendix IV ............................................................................................ 36 Speech Materials for the Intervention Programme .................... 36 8.5. Appendix V ............................................................................................. 38 Speech Materials for the Post-Test .............................................. 38 1 ABSTRACT This study aims to detect phonological challenges in Spanish-speaking children with dyslexia who are learning English as a FL and to design a tailored intervention to help with their learning issues. Using a screening test as a starting point, the research identified one participant, an 8-year-old boy, who was confirmed to have dyslexia, both through the test and official medical diagnosis. Given the limited time, a qualitative methodology was adopted, focusing on an individualized intervention. The researcher conducted three sessions with the student for the intervention period, playing interactive learning games and creating activities specifically designed to meet his needs and strengthen his phonological awareness, letter-sound correspondences and other core language skills. The Orton-Gillingham approach served as a guiding framework, emphasizing direct, personalized, and multisensory instruction, which is an essential strategy for engaging dyslexic learners who often struggle with traditional paper-based methods. The results show that the most challenging aspects of learning English as a foreign language for the dyslexic child are writing and reading. This is due to the complexity of the grapheme-phoneme correspondence in English, which is an opaque language, in difference with Spanish, which is transparent. Despite the short duration of the intervention, notable improvements were observed in the student's ability to manipulate letters and sounds (phonological awareness). This suggests that when children with learning difficulties receive appropriate and personalized educational support, they can make significant improvement at the same rate as their classmates. Keywords: Dyslexia, Phonological Awareness, English as a Foreign Language, Examiner, Participant. 1. INTRODUCTION Few would dispute the fact that learning English as a foreign language is taking over the world, being already considered the Lingua Franca. This applies not only to businesses and trades from a country to another, or other areas where communication is crucial, but English is also, more than ever, quite present in educational environments from young ages. In addition, new teaching models are being introduced for those who need special attention, and one of the most common learning difficulties present in young students is dyslexia: “El alumnado con dislexia constituye el 80% de los trastornos del aprendizaje” (Angulo, M., Gonzalo, J., Luque, J.L., Rodríguez, M.P., Sánchez, R., 2 Satorras, R.M., Vázquez, M. (2012, p. 7). If children already struggle with dyslexia in their native language, learning a foreign language becomes more of a challenge. In relation to that, this work is going to study the phonological difficulties (problems in dealing with the speech sound of words) that a dyslexic child, whose first language is Spanish, faces when learning a foreign language, which in this case is English. As Youman, M., & Mather, N. (2020) state: “dyslexia is a neurological disorder characterized by difficulties with word recognition, spelling, and reading rate”. According to the International Dyslexia Association (IDA), this condition stems from deficits in phonological awareness, working memory, and processing speech, which make word decoding particularly challenging. Although there is still much research that needs to be done in the field of dyslexia, its impact is gaining studies with years, and therefore, its influence in the FL is being highlighted. For children with dyslexia, learning a second language such as English involves struggling with additional barriers than a child without it. For example, Spanish is a language that is read the same way that is written, which is called the grapheme-phoneme correspondence (Suárez-Coalla, P., Martínez-García, C., Carnota, A., (2020), and dyslexic children already grapple with it. This correspondence “facilitates the storing of the orthographic representation of those words in memory” (Suárez-Coalla et al., 2020, p. 2). But, when it comes to English, this G-P correspondence does not exist as the language is characterized by a deep and irregular orthography. So, these irregularities, according to Suárez, seem to prevent (from an early age) the development of orthographic representations of intermediate units such as rhymes, syllables, morphemes, etc, and this is where dyslexic children learning this foreign language seem to scuffle. Motivated by this issue, this study’s primary focus is understanding how the characteristics of dyslexia interfere in a particular student who learns English as a foreign language and create a specific treatment with methodological strategies to work on his specific diagnosis. As Friedmann, N., and Coltheart, M. (2018) acknowledge, there is a huge variety of phonological impairments, but, “knowing the different ways the reading process can break down and understanding the properties of each type of dyslexia allows the development and application of focused treatment directions that are tailored to the specific errors and source of each type of developmental dyslexia” (p. 721). In reference to that quote, this paper addresses the following questions: Where does a (Spanish) dyslexic child get stuck most when learning English? Can a dyslexic student learn a foreign language at the same pace as other children? Do they need another method to learn more effectively? The hypothesis for these questions will show that children with 3 dyslexia do in fact have more barriers in learning a foreign language but this can be avoided or reduced with the necessary attention. The present paper is divided as follows: Section 2 is dedicated to the theoretical background, including definitions, types, and interesting research on the topic of dyslexia and the foreign language. Section 3 is wholly dedicated to the process of the creation of the study for the participant, and thus how it has been carried out. Subsequently, Sections 4 and 5 show the results and the conclusions that the study has provided, together with the future research. And finally, Sections 6 and 7 are dedicated to acknowledgements and references each. 2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1. What is dyslexia? As it has been previously mentioned, dyslexia, or developmental dyslexia (DD), is being paid greater attention to than a few years ago, as increasing cases in young students are being identified. For that reason, many definitions are showing up but the one that is having more extension claims that dyslexia is identified as: “un trastorno específico del aprendizaje de la lectura de base neurobiológica, que afecta de manera persistente a la decodificación fonológica (exactitud lectora) y/o al reconocimiento de palabras (fluidez y velocidad lectora) interfiriendo en el rendimiento académico con un retraso lector de al menos dos años” (Angulo et al., 2012, p.8). In other words, “Dyslexia is a difficulty in learning to decode (read aloud) and to spell” (J. Snowling, Hulme, & Nation, 2020, p. 501). These difficulties seem to be rooted by a damage of the phonological component (Lyon, Shaywitz, & Shaywitz, 2003, as cited in Rabia & Salfety, 2021). Interestingly, these impairments in reading and spelling do not seem to be related to their IQ (intellectual quotient) skills: verbal and non-verbal abilities, memory, speed of processing, reasoning, etc. As J. Snowling et al., (2020) studied with some individuals taking an IQ test: “Assuming no obvious neurological or sensory impairment and no lack of educational opportunity, children with average or above average Full-Scale IQ who nevertheless show problems with reading and spelling may be classified as dyslexic” (p. 502). Besides, Caylak (2010) adds to this: “The learning disabilities in reading (dyslexia) affects the children by unexpected problems in academic performance despite normal intelligence” (p. 1). This demonstrates that dyslexic children probably not only have the same IQ than the rest of the class but may also be above it. Thus, there is no relationship between phonological difficulties and intelligence. 4 Diagnosing dyslexia is more of a challenge though, and the age at which it is diagnosed seems to vary among students. According to Caylak, E., (2010): “Reading Disability (RD) or Developmental Dyslexia (DD) is diagnosed in the school age children (4 and 7%) (p. 1)”. However, the reasons why dyslexia may be present in a student can be due to different and sometimes unreasonable reasons. Research demonstrate that dyslexia is inherited from a genetic component of the disorder, “with a heritable variation estimated at 50-70%” (Caylak, 2007, as cited in Caylak, E. 2010, p. 1). Some studies have shown that dyslexia is more likely to appear in children (from four years onwards) who read less (J. Snowling, M., Hulme, C. & Nation, K., 2020), but it has been contrasted by other studies such as the one of Stanovich and Siegel (1994) as cited in J. Snowling, M. et al., (2020): “There are no clear qualitative or quantitative differences in reading as a function of discrepancy” (p. 501). However, these kinds of disorders may be hinted by teachers in some cases, as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (2013, as cited in J. Snowling, M. et al., 2020) states: “a good indicator is low academic achievement for age or average achievement that is sustainable only by extraordinarily high levels of effort or support” (p. 69). In other cases, it can also be recognised by tasks of rapid naming constituting a measure “that predicts reading fluency, and that struggling readers perform very slowly on these tasks compared with normal readers” (Wolf & Bower, 2000, as cited in Abu Rabia, S., & Salfety, A., 2021, p. 1). There are numbers of examples of tests that have been created to diagnose dyslexia, and one of them is the STAS test, which is a standardized test of decoding and spelling development by Klinkenberg and Skaar (2003, as cited in Andresen & Monsrud, 2022). It consists of both individual tests and screens addressed to students from 2nd grade through secondary school. Their results identify students’ delays in decoding and spelling, offering a basis for further assessments (Andresen & Monsrud, 2022). Apart from these evidences, failure in reading seems to be curiously connected to the type of orthography, something explained by the orthography depth hypothesis, “which reflects the degree of clarity of the grapheme-phoneme correspondence” (Rabia et al., 2021, p. 1). At the same time, reading is connected to the vocabulary proficiency as well. The problem with dyslexic children is that their reading experience is often limited, so the vocabulary level might be lower and would negatively affect written production (ÁlvarezCañizo, M., Alfonso, O., & Suárez-Coalla, P. 2023). Although dyslexia is gaining much research as its cases are increasing, there is still a considerable necessity to develop personalized treatments for specific diagnoses. In fact, Spanish research seems to be the poorest one since there are few, if any, sources 5 that discuss the influence of Spanish in English in the context of dyslexia. It is very important to underline that its impact on each student is very different and each of them may suffer from variable problems depending on the language skill. 2.2.Phonological Deficit Theory This theory ensures that individuals with dyslexia have “specific impairments in the representation, storage and/or retrieval of speech sounds” (Ramus, 2003, as cited in Caylak, E., 2010, p. 1). Its origin was due to the growing interests by specialists who started to appreciate the difficulties of “extracting phonemes from the speech stream and the far-reaching implications of these insights with regard to the challenges of learning to read a writing system based on phonemic units” (L. Share, D. 2021). Reading a word constitutes, according to experts, of two processes: the orthographical and the phonological; PDH claims that people with dyslexia have not well developed these two. This means that reading disorders (RD) are characterized by difficulties when “recognizing a word, spelling and decoding it (omissions (e.g., “ply” instead of “play”), substitutions (e.g., “arm” for “hand”), inversions (e.g., “aks” instead of “ask”), or additions (e.g., “of” and “to”) of words or fragments of words)” (Caylak, E., 2010, p. 1). Besides, the PDH (Phonological Deficit Hypothesis) explains how children with dyslexia are impaired on a variety of phonological awareness skills. Phonological awareness (PA) stands for: “the conscious ability to access and manipulate the phonemic level of speech” (Caylak, E., 2010, p. 2). However, measuring the PA of early students has been a contradictory field of study. According to McBride-Chang, C. (1995), there are three components that seem to be repeated among tasks to evaluate students’ phonological awareness in spite of the diversity, and they are, first, listening to a repeated word to perceive a stimulus, second, asking the participant to operate on that stimulus (depending on the age of the participant, the operation may be different (repetition of a sound, identification of a letter, etc)), and third, expressing responses to the given stimuli. The importance of this theory in the field of dyslexia has been due to explain the different difficulties of dyslexic students and it has helped specialists to give a more accurate educational approach focused on phonological awareness (ability to recognise and manipulate language’s sounds) which can vary notably from an individual to another. This can be explained by the different types of dyslexia that focus on major difficulties that a student faces with dyslexia. Nonetheless, the PDH has had a lot of criticism. Some authors acknowledge that it is true that dyslexic students suffer from issues in phonological processing when it 6 comes to reading. However, they agree in thinking that this theory is oversimplified since focusing only on the phonological aspect to explain what occurs in a dyslexic’ brain is merely an ignorance to other potential cognitive, linguistic, or environmental factors. For example, Nicolson, R,.I, & Fawcett, A.J., 1995 in their article Dyslexia is more than a phonological disability, made a research with students in order to demonstrate that the PDH lacks depth. He tested a control group with different ages and compared them to the dyslexic group, and it showed expected results for the control group, which means that the oldest performed much better than the youngest group because the teens were still developing skills. However, for the dyslexic, they were not only worse in phonological skills, but also in segmentation, rhyming, memory, articulation and processing speed, and he asserts: “such an impairment cannot be caused entirely by reading difficulties” (Bryant and Goswami, 1986, as cited in Nicolson, R,.I, & Fawcett, A.J., 1995, p. 136). Thus, it has been very difficult for authors to assure that the PDH is entirely reliable. Zoccolotti, P. (2022) studied two other cases in which two authors, Berent et al. and Szenkovits, “have tried to derive explicit and testable hypotheses to support or disconfirm the phonological deficit theory of dyslexia” (p. 54), focusing on different perspectives. They discovered that when it comes to the phonological effect in both groups: “no group difference was found comparing individuals with and without a reading disorder”. So, is the phonological deficit theory wrong? Or is it inaccurate? The answer is not clear yet, but there are large evidences which demonstrate that it lacks universality, because not all individuals with reading or language disorders exhibit phonological processing deficits, and therefore not all those with phonological deficits struggle with reading. 2.3.Individual differences and its variables. Types of dyslexia. As Turner, E. & Pughe, J. (2004) note in their book Dyslexia and English: “There are many dyslexic learners who have mastered the mechanics of reading successfully and to all appearances are no different from their non-dyslexic peers when it comes to reading ability”. Roughly speaking, we can refer to the concept of dyslexia as “developmental dyslexia” or “acquired dyslexia”. The first one stands for “children who have never learnt to read correctly, and as a consequence, even though they can both read and write, they use all their mental and attentive energies because, unlike their peers, the process is not automatic”. The second dyslexia refers to reading disorders due to a brain damage (Dalla Libera, S. 2016). Nonetheless, the main difference between these two is related to the distinction between peripheral dyslexias and central dyslexias. 13 reason, a screening test created by the Harp Learning Institute (2014) has been taken as a model for this study, which consists of some activities that some participants from two different private schools have worked with before starting with the tailored method, to detect possible dyslexias. 3.1.1. Participants A total of 15 students have undergone a dyslexic screening test to detect those who could have added problems when learning the foreign language. They are from different schools in the same town and, more or less, they are the same age (6-7-8). There are 7 girls and 11 boys, all Spanish native speakers, and they are all studying EFL in both the school and private academies. They all have a beginner proficiency level in English, and they are learning simple vocabulary such as animals, colours, clothes, etc. The screening test has been created from the vocabulary they are familiar with, otherwise they would not have been able to complete it. 3.1.2. Speech Materials Although the English Screening Test, as mentioned above, has been taken from the Harp Learning Institute (2019), it has undergone some modifications. First, the font used is very important because it facilitates his comprehension and reading. Asociación Madrid con la Dislexia (2014) and British Dyslexia Association (1972) agree that there are some guidelines to follow when dealing with dyslexic students. They both agree that the best font to use for students with dyslexia are, among others, Arial and Comic Sans, “as letters can appear less crowded” (2023). Besides, the font size should be “12-14 point or equivalent”, the ideal letter spacing which improves readability is around 35% of the average letter width, and the inter-word spacing “should be at least 3.5 times the interletter spacing”. Furthermore, they assert that “lower case letters are easier for them to read”, and it should be avoided the use of underlining and italics, which “can make the text appear to run together and cause crowding”. These are some of the modifications that the test has undergone, including also the paragraph’s alignment to the left, without justification, as the Dyslexia Style Guide (2023) points, to make it easier for them to find the start and end of each line (See Appendix I to examine the speech materials used for the English Screening Test). 3.1.3. Procedure 14 This screening test consists of eight student-directed activities which the participants must complete. In these, students develop their writing and reading skills, and depending on the activity, they have to circle, match, memorize or write independent words and letters. In a brief explanation, all the activities of this first part were related with the reading and writing of letters to activate and detect any problem concerning their phonological awareness in English. They were told that they were in an exam so they had to work individually. The examiner was present but tried to help as little as possible, even though they had some doubts because of their young age. 3.2. Intervention Programme The English Screening Test demonstrated that out of 15 students, only one was detected to be dyslexic. For this reason, this study counts on one student and the intervention will be created from his needs to try to improve them. 3.2.1. Participant The student is 8 years old, male, and he is in a normal class in both the school and the private academy of English. With severe dyslexia, according to his psycho-pedagogical evaluation report, the student presents difficulties in his native language such as underachievement, cognitive development below what is expected for his age, lack of skills in expression, communication, comprehension, low ability to concentrate and, most importantly here, profound errors in reading and writing. Apart from this, the student has experienced several head surgeries, presents several clinical reports summarizing hydrocephalus and follow-up in neurosurgery. This is consistent with the theory that the majority of dyslexic participants are males. However, genetics is not corresponded here as many other dyslexic children because in his medical report he does not appear to have any dyslexic relatives. 3.2.2. Speech Materials According to Avaro et al. (2007), in Avellan Ferri, R.M. (2015): “existen diferentes técnicas de trabajo que se suelen utilizar” (p. 16) for dyslexic students. In her proposal for the care of dyslexic students, she studies accurate methods for those who suffer from issues with learning a language. She emphasizes the fundamental role of reading in children who are learning to be aware of letters, since it is the way for their correct development. For this reason, she highlights the fact that teachers must foresee students’ phonological awareness and face their issues as soon as possible. For the 15 approach of helping with dyslexic issues, she quotes Alvarado et al. (2007) to anticipate that teaching should be based on the methodological principles provided by Dislexia Action (2006), which are: “aprendizaje estructurado, acumulativo, significativo, partiendo siempre de lo que ya conoce el alumno y aprendizaje multisensorial, además de flexible y con una participación activa de los alumnos” (p. 20). 3.2.2.1.Individual Pre-Test Before starting with a tailored study, the examiner wanted to know the weaknesses when it comes to the development of skills in the foreign language, especially speaking, listening, writing, and reading. In order to know this, an individual Pre-Test was conducted before starting with the three directed and tailored sessions of the intervention programme, and it helped to recognise his difficulties in the English language and create the method from these results, more closeness to his weaknesses were obtained. First, the student was given a short Spanish Screening Test with a list of Spanish letters and asked him to read them out loud to know his phonological difficulties in his first language. Then, he was given a list of words in Spanish asking him to read them out loud. Having known his difficulties in the mother tongue makes the intervention more accurate in order to know which are the added complications in the foreign language. This would help to create a tailored study to strengthen his weaknesses (To see the materials used for the Spanish Screening Test see Appendix II). Then, the individual Pre-Test was carried out (see Appendix III to examine the speech materials for the individual Pre-Test). Initially, it was necessary to review all the English vocabulary that would be worked through the test to make the participant comfortable in the situation and refresh his knowledge. After that, for the speaking test, he was shown some images with vocabulary he is familiar with, and he was asked questions like “What’s this?” or “Is this a frog?” expecting him to answer “yes, it is” or “no, it isn’t”. Then, the participant was given images that represent the words, and the examiner pronounced one of each pair out loud, asking him to circle the word he heard. The pairs of words were: “cat-bat”, “fox-frog”, “shirt-skirt”, “jeans-green”, “dog-frog”, “hat-bat”, “jump-jumper”. Finally, in order to know where his greatest difficulties are when it comes to writing words in English, the student was asked simple questions such as “How do you write frog?”, “How do you write climb?”. To make it easier for him, the experimenter helped to recognise the word that he was asked to write by doing a gesture that he interprets with this particular word. For example, if he was asked to write fox, the examiner would put the hands on top of the head to represent the fox’s ears. The words 16 that he was asked to write down were fox, frog, cat, jump, dress, red, blue, bat, one, and six. 3.2.3. Procedure After the short Pre-Test which helped to recognise his greatest difficulties, the experimenter analysed which patterns would be more efficient given his characteristics and his necessities. Since the most difficult task for him comes to the association of sounds to letters and vice versa, this short-term study will focus on the Orton-Gillingham approach, by Samuel Orton and Anna Gillingham in the 1930s. This method “is an instructional approach specially guided towards dyslexia and other related learning disabilities” (Purkayastha, S., Nehete, N., & Purkayastha, J., 2012). The OG approach has been demonstrated to be a very effective tool for children with learning issues that involves the multisensory method, which “is considered as the most effective teaching method”, where “learners grasp concepts easily and successfully when teaching involves several bodily senses” (Purkayastha, S., et al. 2012). The OG approach uses auditory, visual, and kinaesthetic elements together for teaching, and “it emphasizes the use of touch and movement (Kinaesthetic) in methods for teaching and learning” (Bernadowski, C., 2017). This method is also characterized by its one-on-one instruction and its gradual complexity. Authors claim that “OG tutoring may be most effective in a private setting utilizing one-on-one instruction outside of brick and mortar schools” (Bernadowski, C., 2017). Thus, this study will be based on this approach which is believed to reap children’s reward. Nonetheless, due to the brevity of the intervention, this study’s primary focus has been the grapheme-phoneme correspondence especially with consonants. Some vowels have also been worked on, but given the fact that, depending on the word, they correspond to different phonemes, such as the vowel letter “a” that might be pronounced as /æ/, /ɑ:/, /eɪ/, /ə/, /ɒ/, /ɔ:/ depending on the position or phonetic content, this is something that could only be developed in a deeper and longer intervention. Sayeski, K.L., Earle, G. A., Davis, R., & Calamari, J. (2019) published a book in which they deal with the OG approach in a study with two dyslexic students and they offer a lesson plan divided into three main sections: word study decoding (phonological awareness, syllable work, decoding irregular learned words), spelling and written expression (spelling and dictations), and fluency + comprehension (sentence reading and listening comprehension). They assure that “this introductory, basic training is ample to provide a wealth of new strategies that can complement the delivery of reading intervention for students with reading disabilities or who are struggling to learn to read”. 17 Thus, this one-on-one study will be carried out based on their planning and therefore in the order shown in Table 1. Table 1. Study Plan SKILL Week 1 Word decoding (60’) Introductory phonics song Association of letters to sounds Bingo with letters “Yes, I’m rhyming” Evaluation Week 2 Spelling and written expression (60’) Introductory song Syllable awareness Clapping game Tracing letters “I can order sentences” game Evaluation Week 3 Written fluency (60’) Introductory song Isolating speech sounds Word puzzle Writing words Evaluation Week 4 Post Test Evaluation To see all the activities that the experimenter and the student have worked on during the intervention period, see Appendix IV. 3.3. Post-Test The Post-Test has been devised taking into account what has been worked on during the intervention period. The results below show which parts were more difficult for the participant, and the Post-Test, consisting of six different activities, considered all the issues covered by the intervention programme implemented to help the dyslexic learning overcome his struggle with English. 18 3.3.1. Speech Materials As with the Pre-Test, the Post-Test was designed to assess a comprehensive range of English language skills, incorporating tasks that evaluate speaking, writing, listening, and reading abilities. This integrated approach was intended to provide a holistic view of the dyslexic learner’s linguistic development and to allow for a meaningful comparison between his performance before and after the intervention. The Post-Test comprises a total of six activities, each carefully constructed to reflect a slightly higher level of difficulty than those included in the Pre-Test. This increase in complexity aims to challenge the learner’s acquired skills and to evaluate the extent to which the intervention has contributed to his progress. For a detailed description of each activity included in the Post-Test, see Appendix V. 3.3.2. Procedure After the completion of the intervention programme, a Post-Test assessment was administered on the final day, following structured sessions with the participant. The Post-Test was carried out in the same space as these, and in the same manner, being the examiner and the participant alone. Throughout the duration of the intervention, the examiner closely observed and documented the student’s behaviours, reactions, and performance in each session. These detailed observations served as a foundation for designing the tailored Post-Test aimed at evaluating whether any progress had been made in addressing the student’s initial challenges with the English language. Given that the student’s primary difficulty lies in the area of phonological awareness, the Post-Test was specifically designed to include targeted activities focused on letter-sound correspondence and sound recognition. These tasks were selected intentionally to measure improvements in the student’s ability to associate letters with their corresponding sounds, a skill that plays a critical role in developing accurate reading and writing abilities. It was expected that through the consistent practice and support provided during the intervention period, the student would demonstrate measurable improvement in the Post-Test. 4. RESULTS 4.1. Screening Test In general, all the participants registered great results for the first activity, which consisted of writing down the English alphabet. However, the dyslexic participant showed results that confirmed is dyslexia as he mixed letters, jumped from one letter to 19 another, and sometimes he omitted some letters. The second activity consisted of differentiating between “b” and “d”, something that all students struggle with, especially with printed script, and the examiner also wrote two big “b” and “d” on the board because students asked for it. Results were generally good, but only the dyslexic student had one mistake. Results in activity three, where they had to circle reversed letters, were equated. However, in activity four, which consisted of circling the words that corresponded to clothes among different vocabulary (trousers, t-shirt, squirrel, red, jeans, etc) with a list of twelve words where they should not have made any mistake, the dyslexic participant exhibited two. Subsequently, activity five consisted of three words that the examiner wrote on the board (one by one) and students had to memorize them in fifteen seconds and then write them down. The words chosen were hedgehog, which none of the students wrote correctly since it’s a difficult word and it has two syllables. Secondly, snake, which was also difficult for them and many wrote “sanke”, which can be explained by a negative transfer from Spanish phonotactics. There are two vowel letters in the word snake, so the Spanish learners of English have written the letter “a” between “s” and “n”, since /sn/ is not a permissible cluster in Spanish. Finally, with the word t-shirt, they seemed to be more familiar with it and non-important mistakes are found. This activity was difficult for both the non-dyslexic students and the dyslexic one, and it can also be concluded that the word length has had an effect on all of them since none of them wrote the first word (hedgehog) correctly. Activity six was about circling the reversed letters within each word. The twelve words in the box had, each one, a reversed letter. Overall, little mistakes were found, but the dyslexic student, even with the help of the examiner, faced difficulties with some words, either by circling letters that were not reversed or by leaving some words blank. Activity seven seemed to be easier for all the students, where they had to circle the words that were entirely reversed. Not even the dyslexic student made a mistake, something that tells that the more information he gets, the easier it becomes for him to resolve an activity. Finally, activity eight contained five words with five images to match: climb, frog, jump, butterfly, and fox. All of the students showed great results in this activity and they did it in a very short time. However, with the examiner’s assistance, the dyslexic student still confused “frog” and “fox”, both monosyllabic words beginning with “f” and sharing the same vowel letter “o”. All in all, there were approximations in the time that students lasted completing it, and the average was at 3’10’’. However, the student with dyslexia lasted a total of 4’33’’ and he helped himself with an alphabet that was attached to the wall. Even with this help, his phonological awareness of the alphabet is low, as letters are mixed, repeated, and 20 others are absent. For example: he wrote “a, b, c, d, g, h, i, l, m […]”. Above all, it is true that he shows shortcomings that he should not have at his age, but his weaknesses can be worked on. The test shows that his greatest difficulty is in writing and letter interpretation, reading, and his capacity to memorize words is very low. The Harp Learning Institute assures that both dyslexic native speakers of English and dyslexic learners of English as a FL from grades 5 to 8 eight years old should have less than 5 mistakes in the whole test that they present. Given the case of this study, which was shorter and instead of 19 activities, as that one presents, it included 8 activities, the number of mistakes should not exceed 2/3 failures. However, the dyslexic student presented around 12 mistakes. Not only this but he did not show a confident behaviour while doing the test, looking around the class to check if his activities coincided with his friends’. After that, the dyslexic participant was given a short Spanish Screening Test. It contained a list of letters and the examiner asked him to read them out loud to know his phonological difficulties in his first language, and he confused the sounds /b/ and /v/. Then, he was given a list of words asking him to read them out loud, and he had problems with words with consonant clusters, as in ombligo, trono, globo, trompeta, prensa, and tractor, as he mixed consonants, and the same happened for him when he was asked to write them down. Having known his difficulties in the mother tongue makes the intervention more accurate in order to know which are the added complications in the foreign language. 4.2. Individual Pre-Test In the first activity, out of 14 words, he recognised 11. The ones he struggled more with were fox, initial diagraphs as in shirt, and initial clusters as in skirt, due to the fact that it was difficult for him to assimilate that two letters correspond to one sound. In the same way that he struggles with clusters as in skirt, in the Spanish Screening Test he tended to mispronounce words with permissible clusters in his first language as /ns/ in transporte. In the listening part, surprisingly, he did not make any mistake. This means that when he hears a word, he knows how to associate it to the image, and he is able to distinguish initial and final letters as in “fox-frog”, “cat-bat”, or “shirt-skirt”. However, when he is asked to repeat, most of the time he misses final letters as he pronounces fox as /fo/, frog as /fro/, cat and bat as /ca/ and /ba/. The examiner helped him repeat these words several times to highlight final sounds, but they seemed difficult for him to pronounce. The activity in which he had to point out “The red dog” or “The blue fish”, 21 and also flashcards of similar sounds such as “The yellow fox” vs “The yellow frog” or “The green frog” vs “The green fox”, he was also able to distinguish sounds. This activity seemed to be easy for him as he did not make any mistakes at all. Definitely, the writing part was the most difficult part for him as he only wrote three words correctly: “one”, “dress”, and “six”. There is a clear transfer here from his native language, Spanish, since he does not write sounds that he does not hear, for example in blue /blu:/, which he writes as “blu” since the last “e” is silent. In addition, what seems to be more difficult for him is to recognise final letters in the words because he does not write any of them, as he wrote “fo”, “re”, “blu”. Moreover, he also presents difficulties when writing down words with digraphs as in shirt, where he was unable to recognise the phoneme /ʃ/, or clusters as in skirt. With the word jump, /dʒʌmp/, it was very difficult for him to recognise the phoneme /dʒ/ for “j” and he confused it with letter “g” repeatedly. This association might be due to their (“g” vs “j”) pronunciation in Spanish, which in most cases, followed by a vowel letter, are pronounced the same as in jirafa and geranio. Besides, after the consonant “g” he wrote the vowel letter “a” because of its pronunciation, the similar sound of /ʌ/ to the Spanish /a/, as he wrote /gam/ for jump and /ganpa/ for jumper. In jump, he might have elided the final /p/ because in Spanish is not very common to have two consonants in the coda; in fact, Spanish favours the open syllable (without coda), and when a Spanish word has coda, it usually has one consonant instead of two. In difference, in jumper, he does write the consonant /p/ because he might recognise it as part of the onset of the second syllable. In the reading, he registered 3 wrong answers, out of 10, as he did not recognise the words three, five, and nine. The reason why he did not recognise these words may be due to the pronunciation, as in five /faɪv/ and nine /naɪn/ he would not expect the vowel “i” after the consonant because it sounds as /aɪ/. This can be explained by a negative transfer from Spanish grapheme to phoneme relationships. In Spanish, the letter “i” is always pronounced as /i/, in difference with English. The relationships between sounds and letters are much simpler in Spanish than in English. What we can conclude from this first test is that his biggest weaknesses are on the grapheme-phoneme correspondence, as it is difficult for him to both write words and pronounce them. The participant is able to match images, and when the examiner pronounces a word, he clearly understands what it refers to. The more contextual information he receives, the better he comprehends the word. However, his phonological awareness is very limited, and he requires significant support in associating letters with their corresponding phonemes. 22 4.3.Intervention Programme and Post-Test The results of this study have shown that the Spanish child with dyslexia who participated in the intervention programme accomplished significant improvement over a relatively short period of time. Throughout the sessions, not only did the child show increasing confidence in his abilities, reflected in both his performance and attitude, but he also exhibited a more positive and motivated approach as he realized his own progress. Furthermore, the process revealed that he is considerably more engaged and effective when working with TICS-based activities, as the OG approach suggests. Traditional paper-and-pencil tasks tended to bore him, whereas interactive computer games, rich in stimuli, kept him focused and actively involved in the learning process. A clear improvement was observed between the Pre-Test and the Post-Test results, as shown in Table 2, particularly in the recognition of some phonemes which were impossible for him to recognise at the beginning of the intervention period (see below). This enhanced phonemic awareness has also contributed to a more accurate spelling when writing words in most cases, highlighting the effectiveness of the intervention. However, given the complexity of the grapheme-phoneme correspondence in English, many sounds would need to be worked yet, such as vowels, digraphs, and phonemes highlighted in Table 2. Overall, all skills have improved, particularly writing and reading, which have been the most challenging for him due to his learning disability. However, continued effort and support are still needed to further develop these areas. Table 2. Comparison of results between the Pre-Test and the Post-Test Skill Area Before (Pre-Test) ❌ After (Post-Test) ✅ Phonological Awareness Struggles to identify and differentiate English sounds. Differentiates difficult sounds (not all) and is able to sing the alphabet. Segmentation Easy for him to segment syllables after explanation. Uses clapping as a method to blend and segment syllables. Spelling Some initial and all final sounds are not pronounced. No differentiation between letters “g” and “j”. Phonemes /ʃ, θ, tʃ/ not recognized. Is able to differentiate between letters “g” and “j” in most cases and their corresponding phonemes and to articulate and distinguish phonemes as /ʃ, θ, tʃ/ in most cases. 29 Lado, R. (1956). A Comparison of the Sound Systems of English and Spanish. Hispania, vol.39, nº1, pp. 26-29. McBride-Chang, C. (1995). What is phonological awareness? Journal of Educational Psychology, 87(2), 179. Nicolson, R.I., & Fawcett, A.J. (1995). Dyslexia is more than a phonological disability. DYSLEXIA-CHICHESTER-, 1, 19-36. Nijakowska, J. (2010). Dyslexia in the foreign language classroom (Vol. 51). Multilingual Matters. Parrondo Rodríguez, A.E. (1999). The L2 acquisition of syllable structure and stress in Spanish (Doctoral dissertation, Durham University). Purkayastha, S., Nehete, N., & Purkayastha, J. (2012). DiscoverAn OrtonGillingham approach inspired multi-sensory learning application for dyslexic children. In 2012 World Congress on Information and Communication Technologies (pp. 685-690). IEEE. Romo, E. (2023, December 6). Dislexia en niños: todo lo que necesitas saber. El Mundo. Sayeski, K.L., Earle, G. A., Davis, R., & Calamari, J. (2019). Orton Gillingham: Who, what, and how. Teaching Exceptional Children, 51(3), 240-249. Share, D.L. (2021). Common Misconceptions about the Phonological Deficit Theory of Dyslexia. Brain Sci, 11. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11111510 Shoebottom, P. (2017). Language differences: English-Spanish. Retrieved from http://esl.fis.edu/grammar/langdiff/spanish.htm Suárez-Coalla, P., Martínez-García, C., Carnota, A. (2020). Reading in English as a Foreign Language by Spanish Children With Dyslexia. Front. Psychol. 11:19. 30 Sparks, R. L., & Ganschow, L. (1993). FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING AND THE LEARNING DISABLED AT-RISK STUDENT: A REVIEW OF RECENT RESEARCH. The International Schools Journal, 47. Sparks, R.L. (1995). Examining the linguistic coding differences hypothesis to explain individual differences in foreign language learning. Annals of dyslexia, 45, 187214. Swan, D., & Goswami, U. (1997). Phonological awareness deficits in developmental dyslexia and the phonological representations hypothesis. Journal of experimental child psychology, 66(1), 18-41. Turner, E., & Pughe, J. (2004). Dyslexia and English. David Fulton Publishers. Uribe Enciso, O.L., Fuentes Hernández, S.S., Vargas Pita, K.L. & Rey Pabón, S.R. (2019). Problematic Phonemes for Spanish speakers’ Learners of English. Gist Education and Learning Research Journal, pp.215-238. Youman, M., & Mather, N. (2020). Cognitive Correlates of Basic Reading Skills in Spanish-Speaking English Language Learners: Implications for Dyslexia Assessment. Contemporary School Psychology, 24(4), 406-418. Zoccolotti, P. (2022). Success is not the entire story for a scientific theory: The case of the Phonological Deficit Theory of dyslexia. Brain Sciences, 12(4), 425. 8. APPENDICES 8.1. Appendix I Speech materials for the English Screening Test 1.Write the alphabet below in lower case letters. 31 2. Circle all the B’s from the box below. b d b q d b p d b b q q b p d q b d d b b d p q b d q b d b p p d b p b d p b 3. Circle each reversed letter. In this activity, 18 letters are shown in a table and some of the letters are reversed. They have to circle the reversed ones in order to differentiate from the correct ones. This activity is done by hand. 4. Circle the words that correspond to clothes. Rabbit Trousers Orange Lizard Yellow T-shirt Squirrel Jeans Dress Coat Parrot Shoes 5. Memory Game. This game consists of three words which will be shown one by one by the examiner with a timer (20’’), and the students have to memorize the words to write it down later. The students are familiar with the words. ___________________________ ___________________________ ___________________________ 6. Circle each reversed letter within the word. This activity, similar to activity 3, consists of a table of 12 words where each of the words contains a reversed letter, and the students have to circle that one. This activity needs to be done by hand as well as activity 3. 7. Circle each reversed word. In this activity, 10 words are present and they have to circle the reversed ones. Also done by hand. 8. Match each word with its corresponding image. 32 Climb Frog Jump Butterfly Fox *Note that modifications with the text, according to the British Dyslexia Association (2023), as point 3.2.1. shows must be done in order to facilitate reading to the dyslexic students. 8.2. Appendix II Speech materials for the Spanish Screening Test 1.Read these letters out loud. e o i t u b f n v c r x z j s q ñ y p d l g m ñ 2. Read these words out loud. globo peine pueblo ciervo ermita fuego gigante cuerpo girasol especie treinta granizo ombligo trono blanco alfombra pulga trompeta prensa viento huelga muerto lienzo cristal estrella mueble princesa astuto bosque sombrero tierra cloro 33 peldaño gente triunfal plato tintero liebre pregunta tractor 3. Circle the image that corresponds to the sentence. 34 8.3. Appendix III. Speech materials for the individual Pre-Test 1. Review all the vocabulary. 35 2. Speaking: showing images and asking the participant: Is this a …? What’s this? 3. Circle the word you hear: a. Cat/bat b. Fox/frog c. Shirt/skirt d. Jeans/green e. Dog/frog f. Hat/bat g. Jump/jumper 4. Point the images you hear: h. The red dog i. The blue fish j. The yellow fox k. The green frog l. The purple rabbit 5. Writing: m. Can you write fox? n. Can you write frog? o. Can you write cat? p. Can you write jump? q. Can you write dress? r. Can you write red? s. Can you write blue? t. Can you write bat? u. Can you write one? v. Can you write six? 6. Match numbers with their spelling. 1. Three 2. Five 3. Ten 4. Seven 36 5. Two 6. One 7. Three 8. Nine 9. Four 10. Six 8.4. Appendix IV Speech materials for the Intervention Programme Session 1: 1. Introductory song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BELlZKpi1Zs 2. Color the beginning sound. a. (image of spider): e d s c b. (image of fox): f g h s c. (image of pizza): t b p d d. (image of trousers): c f h t e. (image of jumper): g j s b f. (image of hedgehog): j k h g g. (image of run): s c b r h. (image of climb): c l k h i. (image of butterfly): b d f g j. (image of frog): g f d h 3. Association of letters to sounds:  https://www.abcya.com/games/talk_to_me_alphabet  https://www.abcya.com/games/alphabet_matching_game 4. Bingo with letters:  https://www.abcya.com/games/alphabet-bingo  https://www.abcya.com/games/alphabet 37 5. “Yes, Im rhyming” game:  https://www.abcya.com/games/alphabats_rhyming Session 2: 1. Introductory song:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccEpTTZW34g 2. Syllables game:  https://www.abcya.com/games/alphabats_syllables 3. Tracing letters:  https://app.lexercise.com/mylexercise/index/index/demo/2c9h67mizr6fhkl8?_gl =1*1vvxwzh*_gcl_au*MTE4ODQ3OTQwOS4xNzQ0NzEwMDQ3 4. Ordering words in a sentence:  https://wordwall.net/es/resource/4265082/order-the-sentences 5. The examiner gives the participant separated (previously prepared) words in paper and he has to order the sentence. Example: he is given the words like, don’t, I, spiders. Words should be printed and cut out or in some way that the student can manipulate them. Session 3: 1. Introductory song:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFaMBm8-7mQ 2. Isolating speech sounds:  https://app.lexercise.com/mylexercise/index/index/demo/6xomiu8dyrm4m981?_ gl=1*1buu3eg*_gcl_au*MTE4ODQ3OTQwOS4xNzQ0NzEwMDQ3 38 3. Word puzzle: This game is hand created and it consists of giving the participant words jumbled letter by letter with their images for him to order the letters and form the word. The examiner repeats the word several times for him to listen to the sounds and interpret them.  Words: climb, butterfly, gorilla, stop, think, hair, chair, ship, boat, coat, milk, blue, snail, snake, flag, shower, jump, clap, student, shopping. Example: (image of think /θɪŋk/): K I T N H *The game can be complicated if the examiner does not pronounce the words. 4. Writing words game:  https://app.lexercise.com/mylexercise/index/index/demo/ll4m2gkogxhzc0zj?_gl =1*encmuw*_gcl_au*MTE4ODQ3OTQwOS4xNzQ0NzEwMDQ3 5. Ask the participant to write down the following words:  Think, shower, stop, student, butterfly, blue, ship, snake, shirt, skirt. 8.5. Appendix V Speech materials for the Post-Test 1. Write the alphabet below. *The alphabet is timed. 2. Ask the student to read the following pairs of words: a. Cat / bat b. Frog / fox c. Jump / jumper