2.3.1. Texts

The students read an expository text that consisted of 338 words. Assessments of literal and deep comprehension, background knowledge, and fluency (both automaticity and prosody) were based on students' reading of this text. The text, which was about cartoons, was obtained from a grade appropriate Turkish language arts course textbook. The text explained the nature of cartoons, their historical development, types of cartoons, and the role of cartoons in communication. The other short passages for assessing strategy use were obtained from the same fourth grade textbook and were either reorganized or shortened for the reading strategies.

#### 2.3.2. Reading Fluency

Reading fluency, including word recognition automaticity and prosody, was assessed using the expository text. Automaticity was determined by calculating the number of words read correctly in the initial 60 seconds of oral reading. Prosody was assessed qualitatively by a researcher who listened to each student read the grade-level passage and rated the prosodic quality of the oral reading using a rubric that describes levels of competency on various elements of prosody (expression/volume, phrasing, smoothness, and pace). The rubric was developed by Rasinski [36] and adapted by Yildiz, Yildirim, Ates, and Cetinkaya [37] for use with Turkish students. Prior research using the rubric with English readers has demonstrated the rubric to be a reliable and valid measure of prosody [38,39]. The Turkish adaptation of the scale included the same four main dimensions in previous studies [36]. Students' scores for the full prosody assessment ranged from a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 16.

#### 2.3.3. Background Knowledge

The researchers developed a 10-item, multiple-choice test to assess the students' background knowledge about cartoons, the content in the main text. The researchers examined the text to identify content (knowledge) that was judged to be essential for correctly answering the questions. Distractors in the background knowledge test included either facts that were presented in the text or events that were judged to be familiar from participants' everyday experiences but not consistent with the information presented in the text. The test-retest reliability of the prior knowledge measure was computed, with 3 weeks between the test and the retest. A The reliability estimate was determined to be (Pearson r) 0.81 (see Appendix A).

#### 2.3.4. Reading Comprehension Strategies

Strategy use was determined using a 12-item, researcher-developed measure that was based on work by Kozminsky and Kozminsky [40] and was also similar to the measures employed in previous research [41,42]. Short passages, appropriate for fourth grade, were identified from fourth grade Turkish language arts textbooks. After reading each passage, the students answered two multiple-choice items that required the use of various reading comprehension strategies. For example, for the strategy of summarizing, students read a passage and were presented with four possible summary sentences. Their task was to choose the best summary of the passage. Based on the findings from previous research relevant to strategy instruction, we identified and assessed six strategies: activating background knowledge, summarizing, identifying main idea, awareness of text structure, predicting, and self-questioning (see Appendix B).

#### 2.3.5. Reading Comprehension

Following previous research [43], we developed a sentence verification task (SVT) to measure the students' literal comprehension of the main text (Cronbach's Alpha = 0.71). The SVT was developed by generating four types of test items from sentences in the text/s: (a) originals, which were copies of sentences that appeared in the text/s; (b) paraphrases, which were constructed by changing as many words as possible in original sentences without altering the essential meaning; (c) meaning changes, which were constructed by changing one or two words in original sentences so that the meaning of the sentences was altered; and (d) distractors, which were syntactically similar and thematically related to the original sentences but were not consistent with the meaning to the originals. The test consisted of 16 items (four originals, four paraphrases, four meaning changes, and four distractors) that the participants were asked to mark "yes" for items that had the same meaning as text sentences (originals or paraphrases) or "no" for those that had a different meaning (meaning changes and distractors).

Again, following Royer et al. [43] and Strømsø, Bråten, and Samuelstuen [44], we constructed an inference verification task (IVT) to measure the students' deeper or inferential, understanding of the same text (Cronbach's Alpha = 0.67). This test consisted of 16 items, 8 of which were near inference items and 8 of which were far inference items. The near inference items were constructed by combining information in the text to form either a valid or invalid inference. The far inference items were constructed by combining an item of information from the text with information that the student would likely have about the topic in order to create valid or invalid inference. The students were instructed to mark "yes" for the items that could be inferred from material presented in the text, and "no" for those that could not be inferred from material presented in the text (see Appendix C).

## *2.4. Procedure*

Prior to the study, the main text, short passages and accompanying questions were reviewed by experts in reading education from a public university in Turkey. All reviewers had Ph.D. degrees in elementary school education. The experts reviewed the extent to which the texts adequately corresponded to reading domain objectives of the fourth grade Turkish language arts curriculum and the extent to which the questions adequately measured comprehension of the texts. The experts also verified that each comprehension question was appropriate given developmental standards and the students' reading levels.

Students initially completed the multiple-choice background knowledge test. Next, they were asked to read the grade-appropriate expository text on cartoons and complete the SVT and IVT tests. Students were tested individually and asked to orally read the passage corresponding to their grade level placement. The students were asked to read the text in their best or most expressive (prosodic) voice and were told that they would be questioned about what they had read following their reading. During each student's oral reading, the researcher administering the test marked any uncorrected word recognition errors made by the student as well as marking the text position of the student at the end of 60 seconds in order to determine reading rate, a measure of word recognition automaticity. Prosody, or expressive reading, the second element of fluency, was measured by independent evaluators listening to the student reading and then rating the prosodic quality of the oral reading using the Turkish adaptation of the multi-dimensional fluency rubric [45].
