The purpose of this study was, accordingly, to examine the effects of structural semantic mapping training on the reading comprehension and attitude of children with reading disabilities. It's specifically meant to find out whether structural semantic...
The purpose of this study was, accordingly, to examine the effects of structural semantic mapping training on the reading comprehension and attitude of children with reading disabilities. It's specifically meant to find out whether structural semantic mapping training had any effects on improving the reading comprehension of school children with reading disabilities, and then to look into how that affected their reading attitude.
The subjects in this study were three fourth-grade school children with learning disabilities. An experiment was conducted for 12 weeks, four times a week, 40 minutes each, by adopting one-group multiple probe design across subjects. They took a base-line test separately in the fourth to eighth sessions. After intervention was provided to one of the three children first, he took a reading comprehension test. When he performed by 60% or more in two consecutive sessions, another intervention was offered to the next child. Like this, the experiment was implemented in 11 to 14 sessions, depending on the subjects, in the procedure of modelling, giving an introduction and independent performance. Retention test was fulfilled in three sessions, once a day, two weeks after the intervention was withdrawn.
Reading comprehension test was conducted in every session including the base-line, intervention and retention periods. This test was prepared by this researcher based on a curriculum-centered evaluation method, and its degree of difficulty was assessed before its use. The test results were analyzed by making visual data including tables and graphs. Reading attitude test was fulfilled nine times in the entire process, three times in each of the base-line, intervention and retention periods. To evaluate their behaviors, target behaviors were selected after recording their incidents, and then the frequency of the selected behaviors was recorded by making a graph. In addition, observation method was used to make a qualitative evaluation of their reading habits and other notable characteristics.
The findings of the study were as follows:
First, the structural semantic mapping training served to enhance the reading comprehension of the fourth graders with reading disabilities. Its effect remained the same in both of the intervention and retention periods. Second, the structural semantic mapping training brought a positive change to the reading attitude of the children with reading disabilities, and that remained effective in the retention period as well.
Given the above-mentioned findings, the following conclusion was reached about the effects of the structural semantic mapping training on the reading comprehension and attitude of children with reading disabilities:
First, the structural semantic mapping training is effective in boosting the reading comprehension of children with reading disabilities. Second, the structural semantic mapping training has a good effect on improving the reading attitude of children with reading disabilities.