Applicable comparison of sentence and letter-sound methods used in first reading and writing instruction

This research has been applied to the students who have acquired their first-reading and writing skills by using the methods of letter-sound and sentence. In thisresearch, it has been tried to determine time periods of the acquisition of their first-reading and writing skills and if there have been some meaningful differences betweentheir oral reading speeds and the levels of understanding of what they have read. It hasalso been tried to determine whether there has been a different dispersion in readingand writing mistakes which are produced by the students in different groups.Research groups have been formed by two different first-class students of KırşehirCenter Süleyman Türkmani Primary School, 2004-2005 academic year. Experimentalgroup has been formed by the students that the method of letter-sound has been appliedon. On the other hand, control group has been formed by the students that the method ofsentence has been applied on. All the students in the experimental group and the controlgroup have been chosen randomly but their sexes, pre-school educational levels,profession of their parents, and learning levels their equals in terms of their educationallevels have been tried to be controlled.In this research ?controlled final-test model?, one of the experimental researchmodels, has been used. In addition to the experimental data which are gathered by usingthe measurements of the experimental measurement tools, qualitative data collectedthrough ?interview?, ?observation?, and ?examining written documents? have also beenused. During the process of analyzing the data, averages, percentages, frequencies andstandard deviations of the scores belonging to the experimental and control groups havebeen accounted. In necessity, the averages of two groups have been compared by usingthe technique of unconnected t-test. In these comparisions, the level of meaningfulnesshas been taken as .05.At the end of the research, following results have been found:1. Both the male and female students in the experimental group haveacquired the skills of fist-reading and writing in a shorter time period thanthe male and female students in the control group.2. Both the male and female students of the experimental group haveperformed oral-reading faster than the male and female students of thecontrol group.3. When recurrence ratios of the mistakes they have made while they arereading have been compared, it has been observed that both the male andfemale students in the control group have made more mistakes than themale and female students in the experimental group and reading mistakesbetween the groups have shown a different dispersion4. There hasn?t been any meaningful difference between the male and femalestudents of the both groups regarding understanding levels of what theyhave read.5. The male and female students of the control group have made much morewritihg mistakes than the experimental group and the writing mistakeswhich are made have shown a different dispersion between the groups.