Development of Courseware for Slow Learner Children with Reading Difficulties (“my LINUS”)

It is well known that every child whether in pre-school or primary school have the difficulties to learn on how to read at the beginning of study. They do not recognize the alphabet thus making then hard to read and write. Initially, teachers will teach them and assist them until those children passed from the difficult stage after some time. But for some children, they will take longer to understand things than the average person at their age. They required multiple explanations and extra attention from teachers. This causes them to left out at school. This type of children are classified as slow learner children which significantly more slowly than the standard for his / her age. They are not eligible to educate under the special education as they do not have any specific factor of learning disabilities problem. So the project developed is a multimedia courseware to help slow learner children to overcome their reading difficulties problem in their learning process. This project presents the development of a multimedia courseware namely „my LINUS‟ as a medium in teaching and learning specially designed for slow learner children who are having reading difficulties. The courseware will help slow learner children by approaching using a suitable technique/method with proper teaching materials necessary for them. The courseware integrates „Literasi & Numerasi‟ (LINUS) Syllabus officially prepared by the Ministry of Education for primary school children between 7 – 9 years old with the learning multimedia theme. Mainly the “my LINUS” consists of 2 sections for modules and exercises. The modules consist of 3 modules. Each modules dedicated to teach in certain area start from Module 1 continue till Module 3. Module 1 teaches user on how to recognize and pronouncing a letter. Module 2 teaches user on how to combine letters to form a word. Then the last module teaches user on how to combine words and syllable to form a complete sentences. From the developed prototype, the user – acceptance test was conducted. The testing results help to support suitability and acceptability of the courseware for further improvement. The testing was conducted on two primary school situated around Kuala Kangsar, Perak. The final result shows positive feedback on the courseware towards them.