The use of Digital Teaching Tools to Support Students with Reading and Writing Difficulties in the Subject English for Grades 7-9

Sammanfattning: As a result of the increase of digitalisation in today’s society over the recent years, the Swedish school system requires a certain degree of digital competence amongst teachers. The COVID-19 pandemic has not only accelerated the digitalisation of schools it even forced teaching to become digital for some time. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how Swedish ESL/EFL teachers in secondary school utilise digital tools to support pupils with writing and reading difficulties and their awareness of these difficulties. In order to meet the formulated aim of this paper, the research questions have been separated into three sections. The first area involves writing and reading difficulties in English courses. The second aspect of this research will examine which digital tools English teachers use to support students that struggle with reading and writing in the classroom, and the third aspect is how they apply these tools to their teaching. In this qualitative study, four English teachers participated. The empirical data was collected through semi-structured interviews. The results show that the interviewees experienced that the use of digital tools supported and developed students in their reading skills. Moreover, previous research concludes that digital tools have a profitable effect on students’ motivation and learning. However, the interviewees’ struggled to present digital teaching strategies to support struggling writers and did not present an effective digital tool for students with writing difficulties. Additionally, we discovered that the teachers in this study lacked the knowledge to some extent regarding digital tools to support these students; hence, the importance of providing further education to teachers regarding our research topic to offer an equivalent and inclusive school environment for all students. Further, research on digital tools and how to support students were limited. Therefore, we suggest future research on the topic with a focus on digital teaching strategies.