Testing the KAPS Model of Reading Comprehension in a Turkish Elementary School Context from Low Socioeconomic Background

Kasim Yildirim,Fatih Cetin Cetinkaya,Dudu Kaya,Seyit Ates,Timothy Rasinski

doi:10.3390/educsci10040090

Abstract

This correlational study aimed to explore the relations of background knowledge, automaticity (rate), prosody, and strategy use with reading comprehension (KAPS model of reading comprehension) in the written Turkish language context with 207 fourth grade students. Successful comprehension requires readers to make meaning out of what they read. Our KAPS model of reading comprehension hypothesizes relations of background knowledge, fluency components (rate and prosody), and strategy use with reading comprehension components (literal and deep) in the Turkish language and addresses the direct effects of these predictors on the reading comprehension of fourth grade students. The results showed that, whereas fluency and strategy use made statistically significant contributions to reading comprehension, background knowledge did not. Based on the results, the study affirms the importance of automaticity in word recognition, prosody, and comprehension strategies in contributing to reading comprehension in Turkish and, as such, should be given priority for literacy instruction in Turkish.

Highlights

Reading comprehension, in any language, is the cognitive process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written texts [1,2,3]
This research is a correlational study where we sought to understand what kind of relations reading fluency, background knowledge, and strategy use have with reading comprehension
The path analysis results revealed that RMSEA, SRMR, TLI, and CFI values were within expected ranges

Summary

Introduction

In any language, is the cognitive process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written texts [1,2,3]. Reading comprehension is often viewed as a binary capability involving literal and inferential comprehension outcomes. While literal comprehension is related to readers retrieving explicit information directly from a text [4,5], inferential comprehension involves the readers’ consideration of content beyond the text and requires readers to integrate their perspectives with that of the text author. The researchers developed a 10-item, multiple-choice test to assess the students’ background knowledge about cartoons, the content in the main text. Distractors in the background knowledge test included either facts that were presented in the text or events that were judged to be familiar from participants’ everyday experiences but not consistent with the information presented in the text. The correlations are presented in Table 2; all correlations were found to be statistically significant and substantive

Objectives

Methods

Conclusion