A series of measures used in a number of dyslexia screening tests was administered to groups of 7-8-year old English monolinguals and Sylheti/English bilinguals. Within these groups a subgroup of children was distinguished by poor spelling and reading in the absence of general ability, sensory, emotional or behavioural problems, i.e. specific literacy difficulties (SpLD). General ability (assessed by Raven's matrices), chronological age, male/female ratio and mono/bilingualism were controlled between SpLD and control groups. Screening measures assessed phonological skills, rapid naming, the ability to recite or repeat sequences of verbal and non-verbal stimuli, and visual and motor skills. Sample sizes were small owing to the selection criteria used and the small number of bilingual SpLD children identified. However, the results were encouraging in differentiating SpLD bilinguals from their peers, with the phonological measures in particular presenting consistent findings across bilingual and monolingual groupings. Those differences found between bilinguals and monolinguals are discussed in terms of a bilingual influence on the skills assessed or the reduced reliability of the measure.

This paper focused on the assessment of phonological skills amongst children with developmental dyslexia. Findings from assessments of English and Hungarian monolingual children with and without literacy deficits and bilingual Filipino children with and without literacy deficits in English indicated that performance on phonological-based tasks often used in dyslexia assessment batteries was influenced by the language background. Monolingual English children with poor literacy skills showed characteristic deficits in most areas of phonological ability, whereas Hungarian counterparts showed little evidence of such difficulties. Bilingual Filipino children with poor English literacy skills showed equivalent profiles to their monolingual counterparts only when assessments in both English and Filipino were considered. The paper discusses difficulties of generalising assessment procedures from one language context to another.

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The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has affected the basic education sector in the Philippines. In the public school system, the pandemic has not only disrupted schooling by shifting the beginning of the school year (SY) 2020-20201 at a later time, it has also necessitated a shift to alternative learning delivery strategies including the use of more flexible face-to-face, distance and blended learning. This paper focuses on the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak on the K to 12 senior high school (SHS) program and the need to offer flexible learning options (FLOs) to upper secondary learners. It examines the policies the Department of Education (DepEd) has initiated in continuing learning during the pandemic and providing education through FLOs using the INEE’s domain standards on EiE. From this policy analysis, the paper identified some gaps that need to be addressed through the following recommendations 1) intensify FLO guidelines to meet the different needs and contexts of learners especially the marginalized; 2) develop an EiE policy; 3) improve teachinglearning by strengthening communication channels, formative assessment, and multimedia learning materials; 4) provide offline and online options for SHS tracks; 5) explore the use of videos, mobile training centers and flexible times of study.