Reading Accuracy in Bilingual Dyslexic Students of Brazilian Portuguese (L1) and English (L2): A Collective Case Study

This collective case study investigates how dyslexia affects reading ability in the first and second language among six Brazilian students with dyslexia and a control group without dyslexia in grades 3 to 5 at a bilingual primary school. Two reading-aloud tests, one with real words and one with pseudowords, were administered in English (L2) and Brazilian Portuguese (L1). Dyslexic students made more errors than their typically developing peers across all conditions of language, word frequency, word length, error type, and syllabic position. Some error types decreased with age among dyslexics, suggesting improvement over time. Both groups encountered greater difficulty with pseudowords, especially in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). In BP, dyslexics showed more rhyme and multisyllabic errors, which further illustrates how error patterns differed between languages.