Reading Difficulty and Development of Fluent Reading Skills: An Action Research

• Published in: International journal of progressive education Vol. 18; no. 1; pp. 22 - 41
• Main Authors: Gedik, Osman, Akyol, Hayati
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: International Association of Educators 01.02.2022
• Subjects: Elementary School Students; Foreign Countries; Grade 2; Grade 3; Grade 4; Grade 5; Intervention; Program Effectiveness; Reading Comprehension; Reading Difficulties; Reading Fluency; Reading Skills; Reading Strategies; Turkey
• ISSN: 2834-7919; 1554-5210; 1554-5210
• DOI: 10.29329/ijpe.2022.426.2

In this study, it was aimed to remediate the reading difficulties of a fifth-grade student having no physical or mental problem but experiencing reading difficulties and to develop his skills of reading fluency. For this purpose, the repeated reading, paired reading, and word repetition techniques were used in the research process. In addition, the meaning analysis, word map and vocabulary notebook techniques were also used due to the positive effect of rich vocabulary knowledge in remediating reading difficulties and improving skills of reading fluency. This study was designed as action research, one of the qualitative research designs, and it was carried out with a fifth-grade primary school student in Sivas in the spring term of 2018-2019. The Error Analysis Inventory was used to determine reading errors. In the case study to determine the levels of reading and comprehension, it was found that the participant was at the level of frustration in the fifth, fourth and third grade texts, and at the instructional level in the second-grade text. As a result of the reading, comprehension and vocabulary development activities, the student's reading motivation, desire and self-confidence increased, and he started to detect and correct reading aloud mistakes by himself. It was observed that the participant, who was at the second-grade instructional level at the beginning, reached the independent level in the text of the third grade and the instructional level in the text of the fourth grade at the end of the study lasted for 31 class hours.