International Journal of Languages' Education and Teaching

Abstract

The purpose of study was to examine the relationship between reading attitudes and reading comprehension skills of middle school students and to determine whether students' reading attitudes and reading comprehension skills differ according to the gender variable. The data were collected from 525 students in 7th grade in the Samsun city. The research was conducted in a relational screening model. “The Attitude toward Reading Scale” which was developed by Sallabaş (2008) in order to measure the reading attitudes of the students; “The Reading and Comprehension Test” that was selected from the examinations prepared in the past years by the Ministry of National Education was used to measure the ability of the students to understand. The relationship between students' reading attitudes and reading comprehension skills was analyzed by simple partial correlation method. Independent groups’ t-test was used to determine students' reading attitudes and their reading comprehension skills by gender. Findings from the study showed that there was a low, positive and meaningful relationship between students' reading attitudes and reading comprehension skills. It was determined that the students' reading attitudes and reading comprehension skills showed meaningful differences according to gender.