The effect of prosody teaching on reading fluency and reading comprehension skills of a primary school third grade student with reading difficulties

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of prosody teaching on the reading fluency and reading comprehension skills of a primary school third grade student with reading difficulties. The case study design, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the research. The sample of the study consists of a third grade student who is studying in a primary school in the district of Başkale in Van province and whose reading skills are behind his peers. The data required for the research were collected in the spring semester of the 2020-2021 academic year. Prosodic Reading Scale developed by Keskin and Baştuğ (2011) as data collection tool in the research, False Analysis Inventory developed by May (1986), Ekwall and Shanker (1988) and adapted into Turkish with the contributions of Yılmaz (2006) and Akyol (2013), and reading aloud records are used. In the process of teaching prosody, reading texts selected from the Inventory of Non-Formal Reading Book written by Karasu, Girgin and Uzuner (2013) and included in the 3rd grade Turkish textbook of the Ministry of National Education were used. Selected texts were applied by classifying them from easy to difficult according to Ateşman (1997) formula. Each session consisted of 50 minutes during the implementation process covering a period of 35 hours. In this teaching process, practices and activities that improve prosodic reading were carried out. In the research, in order to determine the fluent reading level of the student, the texts that he read aloud, the pre-test and post-test data were recorded with a video recorder and these video recordings were used in the evaluation process. In the pre-test and post-test measurements, the number of words read by the student in one minute was determined and the reading speed and correct reading percentage were calculated. During the application process, the student was ensured to follow the model reading carefully. In the model reading process, the student was ensured to read by paying attention to each of the prosodic elements of emphasis, intonation and punctuation. In the application process, prosody teaching was carried out with the direct teaching method. Reverberant reading, repeated reading and paired reading methods were also used. Studies continued until the student was able to read in accordance with prosodic reading. As a result of the application, it was observed that there was a significant increase in the reading speed, correct reading rate, reading comprehension skills and prosodic reading skills of the third grade student with reading difficulties with prosody teaching. This result shows that this program, which includes direct prosody teaching, is effective in eliminating reading difficulties and improving reading fluency and comprehension. In the light of the findings obtained from the research, it is thought that it is important to include the prosody component in the intervention program designed to eliminate reading difficulties.