Supporting first grade students' reading skills in various ways: An action research

This research has been implemented in order to support reading skills of the first grade students whose physical developments have no problems indicated by their parents or detected as well as whose early reading skills have not been endorsed, and who have started to attend first grade without attending a kingarten in various ways. In accordance with this goal, the research has been carried out in action research design being one of the qualitative research methods. The research has been realized at a primary school under Zonguldak, Ereğli National Education Directorate. Two first grade students and their parents, who have been determined by utilising criterion sampling method which is one of the purposive sampling methods, make up the research's working group. This research's qualitative data has been analyzed by speech analysis and Descriptive analysis, quantitative data has been analyzed by "Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test" and "Error Analysis Inventory." In this research the reading skills support program has been developed. The pupils' receptive and productive language improvement has been examined at the beginning and end of the program. At the end of this program the fact that the evaluation points of student' receptive language ages have risen has been ascertained. In the first part of reading skills supporting program, which has been developed in the research, the improvement in students' listening comprehension skills has been examined. The parents or their substitutes adults in research working group have read ten childrens'books using dialogic reading book method. Using tests, three evaluation have been done at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the dialogic reading book activity. It has been detected that the research working group students' listening comprehension skills points have increased. In the second part of the program that has been developed in this research, the improvement in students' reading comprehension skills has been explored. The pupils in research working group have read out ten childrens'books to their parents or their substitutes using paired reading book method. Using tests, three evaluation have been conducted at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the paired reading book activity. According to this evaluation, the reading level of the students in the study group increased from the level of anxiety to the teaching level. The students' reading skills points have gone through an increment from the beginning till the end of paired reading book activity. It has been detected that the reading skills supporting program developed at the end of the research is influential in the improvement of research working group students' reading skillls. It has been seen that both research working students and their parents or their substitutes adults have shown involvement in the process of dialogic and paired reading book.