USING BALANCED LITERACY APPROACH IN TEACHING COMPOSITION SKILLS: AN ACTION RESEARCH

The purpose of this study is to investigate the efficiency of balanced literacy in improving composition skills of 5th grade students in primary education. The research was designed as action research. The study was conducted through the 2007-2008 education year, the spring term in Eski?ehir, a primary school, in Turkish course with 5th grade students. Teaching was provided to the whole class. However, a total of 6 students, three girls and three boys were focused on and in the presentation of the findings, the data of these students were made use of intensively. In the study, writing process approach, which balanced literacy appreciates was made use of. Data were collected through qvideo recordsq, qreflective diariesq, composition testsq, and qbalanced literacy control formsq via quantitative and qualitative data collection tools. The analysis of the data was conducted as the analysis during data collection and the analysis after data collection. In the analysis of quantitative data, the qSPSS for windowsq package program was used. In the analysis of qualitative data a descriptive method was used. The findings obtained from quantitative data in improving writing expression skills showed that students improved in written expression skills. However, this result was not supported by qualitative data. While students showed improvement in the qouter structureq dimension of written expression, in the qinner structureq and in language and expression dimension of written expression this improvement was observed as limited compared to qouter structureq dimension. Results from the qualitative data revealed that, during the improvement of written expression skills, the teaching writing process through balanced literacy components in an interactive teaching environment made progress in these skills.