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

Abstract

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.

Akıcı Okumayı Geliştirme: Bir Eylem Araştırması

“…This shows that students' reading fluency skills should be developed in the early period and reading difficulties should be eliminated. One of the most recommended strategies to overcome fluent reading difficulties is repeated reading (Gedik & Akyol, 2022;National Reading Panel, 2000;Therrien & Hughes, 2008;O'Connor et al, 2007). However, it will be more effective to use repeated reading together with other strategies and techniques, one of these other strategies is paired reading and the other is the word drill technique, which allows to correct errors during reading (Welsch, 2007).…”

Preferred Language Learning Strategies Employed by Rural Secondary School Students in Learning English

“…One of the students revealed that she usually writes down the new words in a notebook and draws relevant images related to the words as she finds it easier to remember. This is closely linked to visual students as the student can reinforce the new words with the image representation for a long-term memory (Gedik & Akyol, 2022). There was one student who claimed that she preferred to write down the new words she learned but she prefers to make associations with other similar words like synonyms, mnemonic or even homophones.…”

“…In contrast to speaking skill, reading is considered a receptive skill in which language students only receive the language without producing it. Reading skill can be defined as the mental processes of producing meaning by subjecting texts and symbols to cognitive processes (Gedik & Akyol, 2022). Santi et al ( 2021) also described reading skill as a cognitive activity that helps readers to learn new things or expand their knowledge by comprehending the text being read.…”

“…This is because questioning skills helps the students to dig in-depth comprehension towards a listening and reading task. It promotes critical thinking while attempting to make connections to the texts which is essential for the students to be able to answer comprehension questions and produce effective language output (Santi et al, 2021;Gedik & Akyol, 2022).…”

Students’ Perception of Cultural Literacy Development in Higher Education

“…For example, if our friends say that we are lazy, then our perception of these words is only a joke. However, we will be offended if someone else says it (Gedik & Akyol, 2022). In this case, our experience can influence how we interpret a word someone else conveys to us or how people perceive us (Steel et al, 2024).…”