Evaluation of Reading Fluency and Reading Errors of 9th Grade Students with a View to Diagnosing the Sources of Reading Difficulties

The purpose of this study is to identify the sources of reading difficulties and to evaluate reading fluency of 9th grade students which aims to improve students' reading and their understanding of complex literary texts. The sample is composed of 120 students selected from 9th grade of 10 different high schools in central province of Ankara in Turkey. The schools are chosen with probability-based sampling methods. Students were asked to read a text which is proposed by Turkish literature curriculum. Data was gathered using "Miscue analysis form" and "Questionnaire" as the main research tools to understand the sources of students' reading difficulties. The statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) program was used for data analysis. According to findings, it was seen that students have reading difficulties even though they are 9th grade students. The results showed that students read inaccurately and they do not pay attention to punctuation marks. It can be also said students with low reading fluency have low competency. The result of this study indicates that most of the teachers who were participated in this study do not assess their students' reading performance and they do not have any analysis form for assessing students' reading performance.