The effect of interactive reading method on listening skills of primary school 4th grade students

In this study, it was aimed to determine the effect of the interactive reading method on the listening skills of 4th-grade primary school students. Intervention design, one of the mixed method research designs, was adopted in the study. In the quantitative part of the study, a single-group pre-test and post-test design, which is among the weak experimental designs, was used. Qualitative data were collected through documents to support the quantitative data. The study group of the research consisted of 22 4th-grade students studying in a primary school in the Sapanca district of Sakarya province in the second semester of the 2022-2023 academic year. Quantitative data were collected through the Listening Skills Achievement Test and qualitative data were collected through the Listening Skills Observation Form, the researcher's diary, and student interviews. The experimental process of the study lasted a total of seven weeks, with two class hours per week. The experimental process was continued with listening activity practices by reading children's pictures books using the interactive reading method. Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was used to analyze quantitative data and content analysis method was used to analyze qualitative data. According to the results obtained from the quantitative data of the research, it is seen that there is a positive significant difference between the scores obtained by the students from the Listening Skill Achievement Test applied as pre-test and post-test. According to the results obtained from the qualitative data of the research, observations conducted after the experimental procedure revealed that compared to the initial observations, most students demonstrated an increase in their behaviors related to listening skills before, during, and after the listening activity. It was determined that practices aimed at improving listening skills were conducted during the pre-listening, during-listening, and post-listening stages of the interactive reading process. It was concluded that the students thought that the picture books read were beautiful, entertaining, informative, useful, adventurous, and exciting. It was concluded that the positive opinions of the students about the listening activity carried out by reading illustrated children's books using the interactive reading method were that the students appreciated the book, content and visuals, the experimental process was developmental, it stimulated imagination and emotions, it was meaningful and contributed to the lives of the students. It was concluded that the students thought that the listening activity carried out by reading illustrated children's books using the interactive reading method affected them academically and personally.