The Effect of Story Reading Activity on Attitudes of Typically Developing Students Towards Students with Special Needs

Abstract

Making children with special needs a part of society depends on others’ accepting them with their differences and supporting them considering their needs. For this reason, various activities can be utilized as tools to develop social tolerance and demonstrate positive attitudes towards children with special needs. Some of these activities include informing, drama, and reading children's books. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the reading storybooks activity on the attitudes towards students with special needs in students who demonstrate typical development. The study utilized a mixed-method design. The study group was composed of 84 third-grade primary school students who received education in the Ağrı city center. Data were collected through the Student Interview Form developed by the researchers and the Social Acceptance Attitude Scale developed by Siperstein (1988); reliability and validity for the Turkish translated form were performed by Civelek (1990). Results showed that Social Acceptance Scale post-test data demonstrated differences in favor of the experimental group students who were exposed to the reading storybooks activity compared to the control group post-test data. Besides, the students reportedly found the activity enjoyable, and at the end of the activity, they stated many positive views about students with special needs.