Middle School Teachers' Perceptions of Reading Difficulties : A Quantitative Study of the Reading Components Perceived as MostChallenging in the Reading Process

This study investigates the most common challenges middle school students face in theirreading development, focusing on various components of the reading process such asphonological awareness, decoding, word recognition, reading fluency, and vocabulary, as wellas how teachers use different methods to identify and support students in their daily teaching.The study is based on a survey directed at Swedish language teachers in middle school andaims to map teachers' perceptions of which component students struggle with the most and howthese difficulties affect reading comprehension. The results show that vocabulary is seen byteachers as the greatest challenge, especially in grades 5 and 6, while decoding is a greaterchallenge for students in grade 4. According to the teachers, they perceive that difficulties inany of the identified components negatively affect reading comprehension.The most common method for identifying students in need of support is through diagnostictests, while reading strategies that focus on activities before, during, and after reading are themost common form of support intervention. Keywords: phonological awareness, decoding, word recognition, reading fluency,vocabulary, reading comprehension.