Examining the Use of Metacognitive Reading Strategies of Students with Reading Difficulties and their Teachers’ Reading Comprehension Instruction Practices

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the reading comprehension problems and use of reading strategies of students with reading difficulties and their teachers’ instruction practices of reading comprehension. Ninety-six third grade students with reading difficulties and 96 students without reading difficulties and their teachers (n=39) participated in the study. In the study, the student questionare and teacher questionare were used. The student questionare included the reading comprehension strategies which were used by elementary students. The students marked the strategies which they used on the questionare. The teacher questionare was consisted of two parts. The reading comprehension problems were listed on the first part of it, on the other part the reading comprehension instruction practises were involved. They marked the reading comprehension problems of their students and their instruction practises which they made on the teacher questionare. In the study, it was found that the most of students with reading difficulties had difficulties in finding main idea, building cause-effect relationship, recalling general information and details in text and making inference. It was determined that the strategies least used by the students with reading difficulties were asking questions themself before reading, imagining the text in their mind, using previous knowledge, underlying the important knowledge, asking questions themself after reading. It was seen that the least reading comprehension instruction practices the teachers made were activating previous knowledge and peer mediated instruction.