The impact of different types of texts on Turkish language reading comprehension at primary school grade eight students

An Analysis of the Problem: Texts have an outstanding role in mother tongue education. The majority of the mother tongue education in schools is achieved through reading activities and by means of texts. Research has proved that the text types make a difference in the students' level of reading comprehension. Again in many studies, it has been identified that the use of different text types influence students' writing skills. In literature review in Turkey, no studies have been encountered on whether the text types influence reading comprehension, and this creates a need for a study to identify the situation. Objective of the Research: the purpose of this study is to identify whether text types have an influence on the reading comprehension levels of primary school Grade 8 students. Research Method: The study group of the study was 140 Grade 8 students at three different primary schools in central Ankara, Turkey. In order to identify whether text types have an impact on reading comprehension of students, multiple choice questions have been produced relating to two different texts; one informative and one fictional. The academic success levels and sex of the students were identified through a questionnaire and it was determined whether these variables make a significant difference to the students' reading comprehension levels. In order to identify the distinction of the scale items, the technique of a 27% sub-top group was used. The KR-20 reliance coefficient of the fictional text was found to be 80; and the KR-20 reliance coefficient of the informative text was four-id to be 83. The data was collected at two separate meetings held in one week, was analysed by means of a t-Test and a one-way variance analysis. Findings and Results: At the end of this study, it was found that text types do have an influence on reading comprehension levels. In accordance with this, the success of the students in reading comprehension in fictional text was significantly higher than the informative text. According to sex variable; female students achieved a higher level of success compared with the male students both with the fictional and informative text. As the level of academic success of the students increased, the reading comprehension level for both text types increased as well. Suggestions: The heavy load of concepts in the informative texts should be re-arranged taking the levels of students into consideration. The inexperience of the students with the informative texts should be overcome. The reading comprehension success level of students should be increased through further activities.