The effects of text on reading strategies employed by young Greek braille readers - Anthi Vakali and Roy Evans

The importance of literacy, and braille literacy in particular, cannot be understated, as it maximises the potential for educational as well as vocational success, and it is also the basis required to reap the benefits of new technological advances, such as the usage of personal computers. There is an ongoing debate in the literature about the prevalence of the logographic reading strategy in readers of shallow orthographies (i.e. where there is a strong phonemegrapheme correspondence) such as in the case of Greek. Indeed, the Greek language is one in which reading strategies have not been previously investigated systematically in young Greek adolescents. The study reported in this article investigated the reading strategies of nine adolescent Greek braille readers. Results show that both logographic and alphabetic strategies are employed by Greek braille readers, with the alphabetic one predominant. The results of this work have implications in teaching instruction, and it is proposed that teaching instruction could encourage a more balanced use of time by advocating the benefits and methods of the logographic strategy to Greek braille readers.
From: Perspectives in Education, Vol. 25 (1), March 2007 pp. 59-70