Abstract:

Nowadays, it is getting clear that online reading comprehension is important for the academic and professional success of the 21st century citizens, so there is a need to teach efficiently reading and learning skills to our students in online environments. At the same time, collaboration and problem solving process are two basic skills for our students as citizens of the 21st century and are also two critical reading and learning skills. Researchers have pointed out that students with high problem solving skills have higher reading comprehension levels than students with low or no problem solving skills. Moreover, collaborative reading proved an important component for online reading comprehension and learning as it provides an effective way to overcome individual working memory limitations. However, few studies have investigated the effect of combining collaboration and problem solving process in a reading classroom.

Based on the above theoretical principles, the aim of this study is to design, implement and evaluate an intervention program in a computer-based reading environment in order to determine whether collaborative reading, reading as a problem solving process and scaffolding through the digital reading environment «eReader» have positive effects on students’ online reading comprehension. Two 5th grade groups (41 students), with or without reading difficulties, participated in the study. 21 students formed the experimental group and 20 students formed the control group. Online reading comprehension was measured before and after the intervention with online informational texts with questions. The teaching approach was based on social-cognitive apprenticeship principles and fading scaffolding. Based to our results there are qualitative differences and statistically significant differences that suggest the experimental-group students enhanced their comprehension of online informational texts.

Keywords:

Online reading comprehension, collaborative reading, problem solving process, scaffolding.