The Effect of the Thinking-aloud Strategy on the Reading Comprehension Skills of 4th Grade Primary School Students

The purpose of this study, which is designed in quasi-experimental model, is to examine the effect of the thinking aloud strategy on the reading comprehension skills of the 4th grade primary school students. For this purpose, in the second semester of 2016-2017 academic year, the reading comprehension levels of 26 students in the 4th grade at a primary school located in the central district of Turkey's Bartin province were determined by applying a pre-test. Among the two classes, whose reading comprehension levels were equal, one class was assigned as the experimental and the other as the control group in an objective manner. In the research; Reading Comprehension Test 1, which included questions about the text 'Edison Invents the Light Bulb' developed by Sulak (2014); and the Reading Comprehension Test 2, which included questions about the text 'Everything Started with a Kite' developed by the researcher were used as data collection tools. The data obtained in the study were transferred to the SPSS 18 software pack; and statistical procedures such as arithmetic average, frequency, percentage, standard deviation, Mann Whitney U, Wilcoxon Marked Rank Test were performed on the data, in the direction of the questions in the research. As the result of the research, it was concluded that there was a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test scores, in favor of the post-test scores of the experimental group students who were taught the thinking aloud strategy.