The Relationship between Elementary School Students’ Reading Comprehension and Reading Motivation

Abstract

Reading is an important language skill whose main purpose is comprehension. In the reading process, visible symbols must be perceived and interpreted in the brain. Once the reading skill has been acquired, it can become a tool for having access to information, analyzing and interpreting it. All of these depend on the reading comprehension skill. Thus, evaluation of reading comprehension is one of the subjects to which great importance is attached. Particularly the evaluation of the level of students’ reading comprehension is a subject of great interest for many researchers. In this regard, the current study aimed to investigate the relationship between the Turkish elementary school students’ reading comprehension and reading motivation. At the end of the study, it was found that there is a positive, medium and significant correlation between the students’ levels of reading comprehension determined with cloze tests made up of both narrative and informative texts and reading motivation. In addition, a positive, medium and significant correlation was found between the students’ levels of reading comprehension determined with open-ended questions made up of both narrative and informative texts and reading motivation. Increase in the students’ reading motivation affects their reading comprehension positively and significantly. Furthermore, reading motivation explains 12-13% of the total variance in their reading comprehension.