Primary school teacher candidates' views towards critical reading skills and perceptions of their competence

The aim of this study to explore primary school teachers' views towards critical reading skills and their perceptions of competence. The participants are 25 teacher candidates who are fourth year students studying in the Department of Primary School Education at the Education Faculty of Adiyaman University. Adopting a qualitative data approach, the data of the study is collected via semi-structured interviews and descriptive statistics is used to analyze it. The results of the study reveal that the primary school teacher candidates do not consider themselves critically literate and they are not aware of critical reading strategies. Moreover, the results show that primary school teachers find the information they have received throughout their teacher education insufficient. The teacher canditates are also found to believe that they lack the skills that critical literacy requires and thus they need more training on this issue. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.