The Effect of the Reader’s Theatre on Reading Fluency and Reading Comprehension Skills of 4th Grade Primary School Students

Abstract

In this study, the effect of reader theater on students' reading comprehension and fluent reading skills was examined. Quasi-experimental design, one of the quantitative methods, was used in the research. The research was carried out in a public school in Mamak district in Ankara for 14 weeks in the 2019-2020 Academic Year. 29 fourth grade primary school students participated in the study. The experimental group consisted of 15 students and the control group consisted of 14 students. Reader theater activities were carried out by the researcher in the experimental group and no application was done with the control group. In the data collection process, the reading comprehension test was used to determine the reading comprehension levels of the students. In addition, the word recognition percentage, reading speed and Reading Prosody Rubric was utilized to determine the participants’ fluent reading levels. As a result of the analysis, it was observed that the reader theater method was efficient in the increase in reading prosody and fluent reading skills, and the decrease in the number of misspelled words. Although no significant effect of the reader theatre method on the participants’ reading speed was observed, it was concluded that the reader theater method increased the participants’ reading comprehension skills.