Oral Reading Skills and Comprehension Test-ii (sobat®-ii): Assessment of reading fluency and comprehension of Turkish students with specific learning disabilities

particular, since eight out of 10 students with SLD 
have difficulty in reading and reading success 
(Valleley & Shriver, 2003), considering reading 
performance scores from standardised reading tests 
may help eliminate the difficulties in assessment. 
Reading problems are often observed with or 
without SLD, especially in the primary and middle 
school age group. However, standardised reading 
tests are usually not used in screening and 
diagnosis of these children, and in planning, 
monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of 
reading intervention programmes (Bingöl, 2003; 
Duman & Çiftçi-Tekinarslan, 2007; Yılmaz & 
Köksal, 2008). 
The purpose of this study was to provide 
findings of a project that was carried out to develop 
a standardised reading test, SOBAT®-II, in the 
assessment of reading and reading comprehension 
skills development of children with SLD between 7 
and 14 years of age. In fact, the development 
process of SOBAT®-II can be a good example for 
many countries and researchers who experience 
problems in this area. Furthermore, findings related 
to participants may provide valuable information 
for researchers and lead scientists to further 
national and international studies. The development 
of this type of tests may help countries to allocate 
economic resources to students who really need the 
support. The research project was supported by the 
Scientific and Technological Research Council of 
Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik 
Araştırma Kurumu [TUBITAK]) and was 
completed between 2013 and 2015. 
Methodology 
Study Design 
This study was designed according to the 
quantitative research design, and the survey 
research method was used to obtain data. Since the 
purpose of this project was to develop a 
standardised reading test, the survey research 
method was selected for this study. 
Data Collection 
SOBAT®-II tests were administered individually 
and took about 30 to 45 minutes to complete. All 
students started reading from the first text and 
continued until they had encountered 10 or more 
reading errors in two texts consecutively or until 
the end of the test. During administrations, 
stopwatches were used to measure reading rate, and 
reading errors were recorded on the administrator 
forms. Students answered comprehension questions 
at the end of each reading. All the test 
administrations were recorded on a digital voice 
recorder. 
Test Development Procedure 
There are difficulties and a need for a standardised 
achievement test in the diagnosis of SLD in 
Turkey. Furthermore, problems exist in the 
assessment of reading and mathematics difficulties, 
and a standardised measurement tool is absent for 
differential diagnoses. Aforementioned problems in 
the assessment and diagnosis of SLD lead 
researchers, clinicians and educators to various 
measurement tools. To overcome these problems, 
some studies have been planned (Erden & Çelik, 
2019; Melekoğlu, Erden & Çakıroğlu, 2019) to 
develop a standardised Oral Reading and 
Comprehension Test. Various stories have been 
prepared from expert opinion, frequently read 
short-story books and MEB primary school 
curriculum. First of all, four Turkish and classroom 
teachers were consulted about the appropriateness 
of the stories, and two linguists evaluated the 
stories. Finally, SOBAT®, which consists of 11 
reading texts and reading comprehension questions 

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Melekoğlu, Erden, Çakıroğlu 
based on these texts, emerged. The validity and 
reliability studies of SOBAT® were conducted 
between 2002 and 2012 (Erden & Çelik, 2019). 
The SOBAT®-II project was being prepared while 
the reliability and validity studies carried out 
following SOBAT®’s pilot studies and the research 
continued using some original SOBAT® texts. 
During the SOBAT®-II project, a pilot study 
was conducted and all the texts and comprehension 
questions were set during this stage (Melekoğlu et 
al., 2019). Both narrative and informative text 
structures were used, and all reading texts and 
comprehension questions were prepared originally 
based on expert opinions. After the pilot study, the 
final stage of the project, finalisation, and 
administration of the test were carried out. In this 
process, the texts to be included in the test and 
reading comprehension questions were finalised. 
The texts were reviewed by the test development 
team both in terms of writing and psychological 
characteristics of the children and necessary 
arrangements were made in line with the 
recommendations. Furthermore, the predictability 
of the answers to the comprehension questions was 
evaluated to ensure that reading comprehension 
questions could be answered only after the text had 
been read. SOBAT®-II consists of two forms, form 
A and B, and each form consists of 13 reading 
texts. Eventually, a total of 26 texts were used in 
the test. The texts were prepared by using the font 
used in the MEB books. 
The finalised test was administered in primary 
and middle schools in the following provinces in 
Turkey: İstanbul, Eskişehir and Trabzon. During 
the administration, 571 students used form A while 
562 students used form B. A total of 1,133 test 
administrations were performed. When both forms 
were administered to the same student, the second 
administration was carried out at least 3 days after 
the first administration. For this stage, the 
following steps were performed: 
1) Schools were visited and teachers recommended by 
the school principals were contacted to voluntarily