The effect of digital storytelling on the reading comprehension skills and reading motivations of primary school fourth grade students

In this study, it is aimed to determine the effect of digital storytelling on reading comprehension skills and reading motivation of fourth grade students in primary school. The study was carried out by using pre test-post test comparison group quasi-experimental modal. The working group of the study was composed of 39 students who are in fourth grade at Atatürk Primary School which is in the province of Bolu in the 2017-2018 spring semester of school year. One of the two classes that their skills of reading comprehension and reading motivation are equal was randomly determined as experiment group (N=17) and the other one is as control group (N=22). During application process, the lessons were realized with the students who are in the experiment group and control group in the framework of current curriculum but in addition carrying out applications based on digital storytelling with the students who are in experiment group. In application process of 14 weeks of the research, each student who was in the experiment group created three different digital story. The data of the study were collected before and after implementation process by using ''Reading Comprehension Achievement Test'' that was improved by Karasu (2013) and ''Reading Motivation Scale'' that was adapted to Turkish language by Yıldız (2010). In order to analysis process the data obtained in the study, Mann Whitney U-Test and Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was used. In the result of the study, there were no significant differences statiscally between the scores of the pre-test of the students who are in experiment group and control group in terms of the scores that were taken from reading comprehension achievement test and reading motivation scale, but It was understood there was a significant difference in favour of experiment group among post test scores. On the other hand, while there was a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test scores of the students in the experimental group in favuor of the post-test in terms of the scores that were obtained from reading comprehension achievement test and reading motivation scale; there was no significant difference between the pre-test and post-test scores of the students in the control group. In this context, in the study it was concluded that digital storytelling had a positive effect on the development of reading comprehension skills and reading motivation of fourth grade students.