Investigation of strategy use and language skills affecting reading comprehension in learning disability

This study aimed to comparatively examine the reading comprehension skills of 4th-grade students with learning disabilities and typical development in terms of morphological knowledge and skills, syntactic knowledge and skills, and strategy use variables. For this purpose, 60 students with learning disabilities and 60 students with typical development participated in the study. The individual reading comprehension performance, morphological and syntactic knowledge and skills of the students in the study group, and the level of use of reading strategies were evaluated. As a result of the evaluation, the One Way ANOVA test was used to determine whether the scores regarding the variables in the study differed between the groups. The Pearson correlation test was used to determine the relationship between the variables. Students with learning disabilities were divided into two groups according to their reading comprehension scores in order to determine whether their performance on morphological and syntactic skills and strategy use differed according to their reading comprehension scores. The Mann Whitney U test was used to compare these variables in groups formed according to the reading success of students with learning disabilities.The stepwise regression method was used to calculate the predictors of the measured variables on reading comprehension. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that the reading comprehension performance, morphological and syntactic knowledge and skills, and total strategy usage frequency of students with learning disabilities were significantly lower than their peers with typical development; both morphological knowledge and skills, syntactic knowledge and skills, and total strategy use showed a strong positive relationship with reading comprehension in all students; It was observed that the frequency of total strategy use and morphological knowledge and skills had a predictive effect on reading comprehension, but syntactic knowledge and skills did not significantly predict reading comprehension. Finally, in line with the study's findings, several suggestions were presented for practitioners and researchers working in the field.