The effect of concept attainment strategy on reading comprehension in gifted children

This research aims to examine how Concept Attainment Strategy affects reading comprehension in gifted children. The research utilized the pretest-posttest control group true experimental design. The study group of the research included 21 students (7 girls and 14 boys) enrolled at a Science and Art Center in Marmara Region and attending the Special Education Resource Program in the second term of the 2020-2021 academic year. The research took 6 weeks to complete. In the first week, the pretest was performed while the posttest was implemented in the last week. The procedural activities were planned in the manner that 2 texts a week would be addressed in 2 sessions and 4 class hours on the same day and at different periods. The methods and assessments were managed by the researcher. For the comprehension data, "Reading Comprehension Achievement Test I" and "Reading Comprehension Achievement Test II" were applied. To implement the method, 8 practice texts which could be used for questioning in accordance with purpose of the method were selected from the website of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK). Mann-Whitney U test and Wilcoxon Signed-Ranked Test of non-parametric statistical analysis methods were utilized to compare two independent groups and dependent groups, respectively. Upon the analysis of the scores obtained from the Reading Comprehension Achievement Test I and II, students' comprehension scores were found to differ in favor of the experimental group. To identify the effects of strategy on literal and inferential comprehension, questions of literal and inferential comprehension were generated about each text after 8 texts had been addressed during the procedure, and then, comprehension scores of the students were calculated. Comprehension scores of the experimental and control groups achieved from the texts were analyzed; for all the texts, inferential comprehension scores differed in favor of the experimental group. For literal comprehension scores, significant difference was only found for two texts in favor of the experimental group whereas no significant difference was observed in the remaining six texts. One can argue based on these results that Concept Attainment Strategy could contribute to students' inferential comprehension more. It can be concluded in overall that Concept Attainment Strategy positively contributes to reading comprehension skills of gifted students.