Analysis of elementary school fourth graders' reading skills according to their use of reading strategies

In this study, elementary school fourth grade students' reading skills were analyzed in accordance with their use of reading strategies. Students' reading comprehension, reading fluency skills (word recognition automaticity, prosody and word recognition accuracy) and their attitudes towards reading were studied within the scope of reading skills. Casual research method was used in the study held with 160 students from four schools at middle socio-economic level located in central Gaziantep in 2019-2020 academic year. Students' use of reading strategies was determined and higher (N=40) and lower (N=40) groups were formed in line with the scores. The students were made to read a text and their sound recordings were made for two minutes. Sound recordings were listened by the researcher and an expert, followed by the specification of their reading speed and errors and filling of the prosody scales. Attitude scores were obtained through A Scale for Attitude toward Reading". The data obtained from the scales and recordings were analyzed in SPSS 20. As a result, it was seen that reading comprehension, reading fluency and reading attitude scores of the group with a high use of reading strategies are higher than those of the other group with low use of reading strategies. As a consequence of the independent sample T-Test conducted between the groups, it was established that there was a statistically significant difference in reading comprehension, word recognition automaticity, prosody and attitude scores towards reading in favor of the higher group.