Effects of Online Differentiated Reading in Reading Comprehension Skills and Learner Autonomy of Young Learners
Erhan Gülşen, Bahçeşehir University (Turkey)
Enisa Mede, Bahçeşehir University (Turkey)
Abstract
The major purpose of this study is to gauge the efficacy of online differentiated reading lessons on the reading comprehension skills and learner autonomy of Turkish EFL young learners at a private college in İstanbul, Turkey. The study also attempts to explore the perceptions of the students and the teachers about the implementation of these lessons. The readers used in these lessons were chosen from Razplus (www.raz-plus.com) in accordance with the findings of Questionnaire on Favorite Book Types (Wigfield & Guthrie, 1997), which was administered before the implementation. The participants were 72 young EFL learners from three different 5th grade classes and 3 EFL teachers. In this convergent mixed method case study, data were gathered from pre-post-tests of reading comprehension and learner autonomy, semi-structured student interview and the teachers’ reflective journals. The obtained results demonstrated that the implementation of online differentiated reading lessons resulted in better reading comprehension skills and improved learner autonomy in reading. The findings also revealed that both the students and teachers considered these lessons to be beneficial for reading comprehension and learner autonomy.
Keywords: Differentiated Instruction, Extensive Reading, Learner Autonomy, EFL, Online Reading;