Comparison of reading comprehension, reading rate and reading miscue performances of students with mental retardation attending to special education classrooms and inclusive education classrooms (The sample of Çorum province)

The main purpose of this study was to compare reading comprehension, reading rate and reading miscue performances of the students with mental retardation who were attending to 5th and 8th grades of special education classrooms and inclusive education classrooms.The subjects of this research were the students who are able to read without spelling out by syllables in primary schools of Çorum Province and were attending to 5th and 8th grades of special education classrooms and inclusive education classrooms. The research design was a descriptive research model.In this research, in order to determine the students' performances of reading comprehension, reading rate and reading miscue, totally two stories from 5th and 8th grade Turkish coursebook were used. Of these stories, one was used for determining reading comprehension performances of the students; the other one was used in order to determine the reading rate and reading miscue of the students. Besides, reading comprehension assessment tool and recording sheets of reading comprehension, reading rate, and reading miscue were prepared.Data were collected within two sessions. In the first session, students' reading rate and reading miscue were determined and in the second session, data related to reading comprehension were collected. For data analysis, an SPSS analysis program was used. Specifically, Mann-Whitney U statistical test was performed to analyze the study result.In conclusion, no difference was found statistically in terms of reading comprehension, reading rate and reading miscue performances of the students who were attending to 5th grade special education classrooms and inclusive education classrooms. Statistically significant difference was also found in total scores of reading comprehension, inferential comprehension and reading miscue of 8th grade students who were attending to inclusive education classrooms. However, there was no difference between two groups in terms of the scores of literal comprehension and reading.Key Word: Special education classrooms, Inclusive education classrooms, Reading rate, Reading comprehension, Reading miscue, Student with mental retardation.