Brazilian teachers’ knowledge of dyslexia, language, and literacy instruction

Abstract This exploratory study assessed Brazilian teachers’ knowledge of dyslexia, linguistics, and reading instruction methods as well as socioeconomic predictors of their performance. Teachers (N = 214) completed a sociodemographic questionnaire and three instruments assessing knowledge of dyslexia, phonology, and reading instruction. Participants worked in public schools, were predominantly female (98.59%), with a mean age of 41.8 years ( SD = 7.98), over ten years of teaching experience, and degrees primarily in Pedagogy. Mean accuracy on the dyslexia items was 67.09%, although 78.5% of participants incorrectly associated reading disability with intelligence. Phonological knowledge was limited (40.3%), particularly in phoneme identification. School location and teaching role predicted teachers’ linguistic knowledge, while additional training emerged as the strongest predictor of dyslexia knowledge. In open-ended questions, the whole-word method was most frequently reported, whereas phonics-based instruction was rarely mentioned and often poorly conceptualized. Overall, Brazilian teachers demonstrated limited knowledge across key literacy domains, underscoring the need for targeted teacher education and literacy policies grounded in the science of reading.