Elementary Classroom Teachers’ Reading Practices: Strategy Instruction and Comprehension

Abstract

The study aimed to explore elementary school classroom teachers’ classroom practices about what kinds of reading activities they do and whether they give attention to strategy instruction for comprehension in Turkish language arts course. The present study used qualitative case study method to find out required answers related to the overall research purpose. This research was conducted in Kırsehir. A total of 11elementary school classroom teachers constituted the research sample. Non-participant structured observations were used to collect data from the elementary school classroom teachers in the study. The findings showed that the elementary classroom teachers use reading activities allowing students to take turns reading aloud rather than activities requiring modeling, repeated readings, social interaction etc. Also, the findings revealed that the elementary classroom teachers do not employ strategies to improve students’ reading comprehension and they do not teach the strategies explicitly. Additionally, the findings were discussed with respect to the relevant literature and it is given some suggestions concerned with future.