Özet:

This study examined the relationship between fourth grade primary school students' reading habits/conditions/ situations and their comprehension regarding what they read. For this purpose, a correlational survey method was used in the study. 90 fourth-grade students who were attending a state primary school in the center of Kütahya participated to the study. Firstly, there are four separate tests: a fill in the blank test which measures reading as a process, a short answer test which measures remembering, multiple choice test which measures both superficial and in-depth meaning linking and open-ended questions which measure meaning linking skills ) were administered to the students. Then, students were asked to read loudly 409-word narrative text and students' voices were recorded. The records were analyzed by experts to determine the number of words that students read per minute, students' reading mistakes and their prosody. Pearson correlation analysis was used to determine the relationship between fluent reading skills and reading comprehension. Moreover, multiple regression analysis was conducted to examine the predictive power of reading skills for comprehension. The findings of the study demonstrated that fluent reading was an indicator of comprehending; prosody predicted in-depth meaning linking better than the other fluent reading skills; correct reading skills predicted superficial meaning linking better. The findings also revealed that there was a weak correlation between reading speed and comprehension.

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