The effects of fluency development program on the second graders'reading and comprehension skills


Thesis Type: Doctorate

Institution Of The Thesis: Gazi Üniversitesi, Eğitim Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Turkey

Approval Date: 2014

Student: AYBALA ÇAYIR

Supervisor: MUSTAFA ULUSOY

Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of designed Fluency Development Program (FDP) on the second grade students' fluent reading and comprehension skills. The study designed as a "action research" of the qualitative research methods and conducted with 36 students who continue their education in the second grade of primary school in the province of Pursaklar in Ankara. "Running Record Technique", "the Scale of Prosody Reading", "the Test of Reading Comprehension" were used as data collection methods. The "Content Analysis" were utilized in order to evaluate the data. The FDP is a flexible application which has been formed by examining all of the fluency programmes for improving the students' reading fluency and reading comprehension skills. To create the FDP, the literature related to fluent reading and reading comprehension was reviewed. The research is including the pilot and the actual application which is conducted in two steps. A pilot application was carried out with 2nd grade students (N: 28) in Spring Semester of 2012-2013 academic year. As a result of the changes made at the end of the pilot application the study was finalized and the actual application of FDP has been started. The main application was carried out with 2nd grade students (N = 36) 2013-2014 Fall Semester. Actual implementation began with the determination of the current status of the students. The results revealed that reading fluency and reading comprehension skills of the students in the class were below the grade level. Then, the students to improve their reading fluency and reading comprehension skills, Fluency Development Program (FDP) has been applied. During the research process, in total 4 tests were conducted including correct reading, reading rate, prosody tests on intermative texts; and comprehension tests on narrative texts. At the end of the FDP process the students' reading errors are decreaeed and their prosodic reading level, reading speed and comprehension levels are increased.