Comparison of Reading Literacy than Students with Visual Impairment and Normal Students

Objective: If we consider reading, writing and accounting as three substantial skills in primary school, reading will be most important skill of them and therefore, understanding reading processes and its methods is required. The aim of this study was to assay improvement of reading in fourth grade primary school students with visual impairment and comparison with the normal peer students. Materials & Methods: The current research was a Causal-Comparative study and performed by the use of PIRLS (2006) international standardized booklet as instrument. Twenty seven students with fourth grade primary exceptional school in Tehran, Rey and Qom cities were selected by means of non-convenience sampling and compared with the equal students in adjacent schools selected by simple random method. The independent samples t-test method was used in statistical analysis. Results: In the levels of reading literacy (P=0.017) and understanding of literal contents, there was significant difference between students with visual impairment and normal students (P=0.07) whereas in understanding of information contents there was not significant difference (P=0.053). Conclusion: The visual impairment was effective on reading literacy therefore there is necessity to special attention to students with acute visual impairment and reviewing their reading programs. It is recommended that teachers and authorities provide more text in brail for blind children and utilize modern assistive methods to improve their reading literacy