Impact of reading fluency methods on reading skills

The aim of this research is to examine the impacts of partner reading, choral reading and structured reading fluency methods on reading fluency skills of elementary education fourth grade students.In this research, a quasi-experimental design with a non-equivalent pretest-posttest control group was employed. The research consisted of two main stages: sample selection and experimentation. The sample selection was carried out with 172 fourth-grade elementary school students in the 2010-2011 Academic Year. The experiment was conducted with 39 students, who fell below the frustration level in terms of their skills of reading rate, accurate reading, prosodic reading and reading comprehension. In both applications, the number and percentage of words students read correctly within a minute were calculated. ?Prosodic reading scale? was used for prosodic reading skills and open-ended questions aimed at measuring ?literal and inferential understanding? were used for comprehension skills. Reading works in both stages were video-recorded and evaluations were made based on these records.Three experiment groups (partner reading [n=10], choral reading [n=11] and structured reading group [n=9]) and a control group (n=9) were formed. Methods and measurements administered to the groups were carried out by the researcher.In the study, Kruskal Wallis H test was employed in comparing more than two independent groups, Mann Whitney U test was employed in comparing two independent groups,Dunn?s Test was employed in multiple comparisons, Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was employed in comparing the pretest-posttest results of experiment and control groups, Cronbach?s Alpha was used in determining reliability coefficients, and Friedman test was performed in repetitive measurements of groups. Nemenyi Test was performed for the Friedman Test post-hoc data, and Bonferroni correction was made.Research findings suggest that partner reading method is influential in students? reading rates and accuracies; choral reading in reading rate, accuracy and prosody skills; and structured reading method in reading rate, accuracy and prosody skills. It was determined that choral reading, partner reading and structured reading methods do not have any impact on the reading comprehension skill. In the control group, on the other hand, improvements were not observed in the dimensions of reading rate, accurate reading, prosody and reading comprehension.According to the research findings, it was observed that the most effective method in improving reading rate and prosodic reading is structured reading; and that partner reading is the most effective method in improving accurate reading.KEYWORDS: reading fluency methods, prosodic reading, reading rate, accurate reading, reading comprehension.