Investigation of 3rd and 4th grade students' reading prosodies according to texts with different cohesion levels

At the elementary school level, where the foundations of reading are established and this skill is further developed, the quality and quantity of the texts that students read hold great significance. In this context, one key feature of texts, cohesion, plays a critical role in the reading process. The coherence of texts, or their fluency, is essential for ensuring a healthy and efficient reading experience; in other words, cohesive texts contribute to both fluent reading and prosodic reading skills. Thus, a crucial research question arises: how do students' prosodic reading performances vary according to texts with different levels of cohesion? To answer this question, two texts with varying degrees of cohesion were read by 3rd and 4th-grade elementary school students, and their prosodic reading performances were measured. Consequently, data were gathered on how students' prosodic reading changes according to the level of cohesion in the texts. Within this framework, the primary aim of the study is to examine the effects of textual cohesion on prosodic reading. The study employed a relational survey model, one of the quantitative research methods. The sample consisted of 3rd and 4th-grade students from various elementary schools in Ordu province during the 2023-2024 academic year. In terms of data collection, two scales were utilized: the "Cohesion Level Assessment Scale" developed by Coşkun (2005) and the "Prosodic Reading Scale" developed by Keskin and Baştuğ (2013). Specifically, Coşkun's scale was designed to assess the level of cohesion and coherence in narrative texts and comprises five components: reference, ellipsis, substitution, conjunctions, and lexical cohesion. On the other hand, Keskin and Baştuğ's "Prosodic Reading Scale" evaluates criteria such as emphasis and intonation during reading. The findings of the study revealed that Wilcoxon signed-rank test results indicated a significant difference in prosodic reading scores between texts with low and high cohesion levels for 3rd and 4th-grade students. These results showed that students performed better with highly cohesive texts. However, Mann-Whitney U test results suggested no significant difference between grade levels for texts with low and high cohesion. This suggests that cohesion influences prosodic reading independently of grade level. In conclusion, the study demonstrates that cohesion significantly affects students' prosodic reading performance, but this effect is not related to the students' grade level.