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

Findings 
Demographic Information 
When the demographic information obtained from 
the families of participating students were 
examined, results show that 10.1% of parents 
applied to child mental health or child neurology 
specialists, while 89.9% never applied to these 
specialists. The majority of applications were as a 
result of attention deficits, and complaints of 
abdominal pain was second. The reasons for 
parents applying to child mental health or child 
neurology specialists are given in Table 3. 
Table 3 Reasons for applying to specialists 
Reasons 
n 
Attention deficits 
33 
Abdominal pain 
14 
Hyperactivity 
12 
Headache 
8 
Not willing to go to school 
8 
Difficulty in reading and writing 
7 
Bed wetting 
6 
Maladaptation 
6 
Tooth grinding 
4 
Seizures 
3 
Only 4% of the students who participated in 
the study were referred to the RAM for any reason. 
In addition, parents stated that only five students 
(0.9%) were referred to special education and these 
diagnoses were about attention deficit and literacy 
issues. 
In the context of questions related to the daily 
lives of the students with regard to studying, 
reading and spending time on other activities, the 
majority of the students had their own study 
environment (91%), most students read one to 15 
pages in books on average (42.4%) and devoted 16 
to 30 minutes to daily reading (26.7%). In addition, 
the majority of students did not exercise regularly 
(64.9%), but the majority of those who did regular 
sports spent more than 120 minutes per week 
(29.9%). Moreover, 25.3% of the students did not 
play any games in the street or park during the day 
and 46.3% of them played 1 to 60 minutes in the 
street or the park. In addition, 41.8% of the students 
spent 61 to 120 minutes watching TV and 56.3% of 
them spent 1 to 60 minutes on the computer. The 
findings on the study environment and daily 
activities of the students are provided in Table 4. 
Table 4 Study environments and daily activities of 
students 
Study environments and daily activities 
n 
% 
Does the child have his/her own study 
environment (room, table, area, etc.)? 
Yes 
516 
91.0 
No 
51 
9.0 
Number of pages read daily 
0 pages 
30 
5.4 
1–15 pages 
237 
42.4 
16–30 pages 
149 
26.7 
31–50 pages 
91 
16.3 
51–75 pages 
20 
3.6 
76–100 pages 
23 
4.1 
101 pages and above 
9 
1.6 
Reading time allocated daily 
0 minutes 
28 
5.0 
1–15 minutes 
170 
30.2 
16–30 minutes 
238 
42.3 
31–60 minutes 
100 
17.8 
61 minutes and above 
26 
4.6 
Regular sports 
Yes 
197 
35.1 
No 
365 
64.9 
Average time per week if exercising 
regularly 
1–30 minutes 
16 
8.2 
31–60 minutes 
35 
18.0 
61–90 minutes 
40 
20.6 
91–120 minutes 
45 
23.2 
120 minutes and above 
58 
29.9 
Daily play time in the street/park 
0 minutes 
140 
25.3 
1–60 minutes 
256 
46.3 
61–120 minutes 
110 
19.9 
121–180 minutes 
29 
5.2 
180 minutes and above 
18 
3.3 
Daily time for TV 
0 minutes 
13 
2.3 
1–60 minutes 
230 
41.1 
61–120 minutes 
234 
41.8 
121–180 minutes 
58 
10.4 
180 minutes and above 
25 
4.5 
Daily time for computer use 
0 minutes 
128 
23.2 
1–60 minutes 
311 
56.3 
61–120 minutes 
79 
14.3 
121–180 minutes 
23 
4.2 
180 minutes and above 
11 
2.0 
In terms of questions about the students’ 
exposure to reading materials, 23.7% of the parents 
did not buy any newspapers and 25.1% of the 
houses did not have a library or bookshelf. In 
addition, 68.1% of the parents and/or children did 
not have library membership and/or did not use the 
library, and 89.8% of the parents did not have 
magazine subscriptions. Details of the students’ 
exposure to reading materials are given in Table 5. 

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6
Melekoğlu, Erden, Çakıroğlu 
Table 5 Students’ exposure to reading materials 
Variables 
n 
% 
Availability of library/bookshelf at home 
Yes 
421 
74.9 
No 
141 
25.1 
Library membership/use of child/parent 
Yes 
179 
31.9 
No 
383 
68.1 
Magazine subscription 
Yes 
57 
10.2 
No 
503 
89.8 
When the characteristics of the individuals 
living in the home environment as the participating 
students are examined, findings yield that 3.7% of 
the students lived in a house with an individual 
with disabilities, who was either sibling, uncle, 
aunt, grandfather or grandmother. In addition, 
results indicate that the mean age of the mothers 
was 37 (M = 37.42; range = 27–55; SD = 5.248), 
and the average age of the fathers was 41 (M = 
41.23; range = 28–60; SD = 5.355). Moreover, 
94.5% of the parents lived together, the majority of 
mothers were high school (34.1%) or university 
(34.1%) graduates and the majority of fathers were 
university graduates (40.2%). When the total 
number of children living in the students’ homes 
was examined, findings show that there were two 
children (54.2%) in most homes. Detailed 
information about the characteristics of individuals 
living in the home environment with participating 
students is provided in Table 6 and Table 7.