For the last decade literacy and illiteracy of the young at the end of their education has been very often the subject under discussion. Already in 1951 UNESCO provided the definition of literacy, which says that literacy is the ability of a person who can with understanding both read and write a short, simple statement of his everyday life. The definition was later on expanded to the possession by an individual of the knowledge and skills of reading and writing, which enable him to effectively engage in all those activities which comprise literacy. When talking about literacy pupils with deficits in individual fields of learning, among them also pupils with reading and writing disorder are a risk group in particular. Authors claim that learning difficulties have a significant impact on educational performance of an individual, and pupils with learning and specific learning difficulties achieve a lower level of literacy in the fields of reading, mathematical and scientific literacy. These pupils’ characteristics, such as problems in phonological processing, working memory, weak organisational skills and other executive functions, have an important influence on the process of literacy and literacy itself.
The theoretical part of the thesis provides an overview of various definitions of literacy, different types of literacy, the definition of inclusive upbringing and education, the definition of specific learning difficulties and deficits in individual learning fields, particular types of reading and writing deficits (dyslexia, the deficit in reading comprehension, dysgraphia, dysorthographia), and some connections between literacy and reading and writing disorder.
The empirical part represents the results of the research on literacy, which was carried out among eighth- and ninth graders by comparing the group with reading and writing disorder with their peers without any disorder. The data for the research were gained with the test, which measures three types of literacy at three levels. The first part of the test refers to general information about the pupils tested (age, gender, grade). The second part of the test is designed to check literacy, and includes three thematic sets or types of literacy – textual, document and calculation literacy. The main purpose of the research was to find out what is the level of literacy of pupils with reading and writing disorder in comparison with their peers. It was found out that in general there is a difference in literacy between pupils with reading and writing disorder and pupils without any disorder, and that literacy is lower among pupils with reading and writing disorder. Within general literacy all three types of literacy were examined; the results showed a difference between the two groups, however they were in favour of the group without reading and writing disorder. Pupils with reading and writing disorder reach the lowest level in calculation literacy, where the arithmetic mean of points is 2.94. The calculation literacy is also the lowest among pupils without reading and writing disorder, their arithmetic mean is 3.92. The highest level is reached in document literacy, where the arithmetic mean is 4.89 among pupils with reading and writing disorder, and 5.56 among pupils without reading and writing disorder. The research showed that the gender has no impact on the outcome of literacy both in general and in an individual group.
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