Exploration of Social Studies Teachers’ Experiences of Reading Practices: A Phenomenological Study

Authors

İlhan İlter, University of Kahramanmaraş Sutcu ImamFollow

Abstract

In this phenomenological study, I aimed to describe the perceptions of social studies teachers’ lived experiences about their reading practices that may have influence on the development of students’ reading comprehension. Data were collected from interviews and handwritten interview notes were analyzed by using qualitative data analysis. Sixteen middle school social studies teachers were recruited in different schools in a city in Turkey for this study. Three themes emerged from the data analysis in the study: reading comprehension skills and strategies, teaching practices and instructional practices. The results of this study yielded two findings: first, the majority of the teachers did not benefit from best practices, reflecting the highly interactive nature of the reading comprehension process; instead they often used the reading tasks or practices in traditional sense in-class. In addition, these teachers found feelings of inadequacy in terms of providing students with instruction in reading comprehension strategies due to their lack of training of content area reading instruction. Second, a few teachers believed that providing instructional scaffolding to support the development of students’ reading comprehension was of primary importance in terms of building understandings and skills for social studies reading achievement.

Keywords

Social Studies, Reading Comprehension, Reading Practices, Educational Research, Qualitative Research, Phenomenology

Author Bio(s)

İlhan İlter is an Assistant Professor in Social Studies Education Affiliate Faculty, Department of Educational at the University of Kahramanmaraş Sutcu Imam. His research interests include reading intervention and vocabulary instruction, social studies education, reading comprehension strategies, teaching methods and instructional practices, and postgraduate education. Correspondence regarding this article can be addressed directly to: iilter@ksu.edu.tr.

Acknowledgements

This paper was presented as an oral presentation in the International Symposium on Social Studies Education VI (May 04-06, 2017) in Eskisehir, TURKEY

Publication Date

9-9-2018

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2018.3011

Recommended APA Citation

İlter, İ. (2018). Exploration of Social Studies Teachers’ Experiences of Reading Practices: A Phenomenological Study. The Qualitative Report, 23(9), 2123-2142. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2018.3011