Developing online literacy skills in the 6th graders

The study aims to present a model for the development of online literacy skills of 6th grade students. This study includes two parts. In the first part, the online reading literature and curriculum were examined, and it was aimed to develop a model proposal for associating Turkish lessons with online reading education. At this part of the study, the data obtained from the literature and related curriculum were analyzed through using content analysis by document analysis method. In the content analysis process, data were coded by 3 experts and themes were created and arranged. Then, the findings were defined and interpreted. As a result of the analysis, online reading gains were determined, and the identified gains were gathered under the themes of "creating and defining problems", "accessing online information", "analyzing online information", "synthesizing and transmitting information using multimedia". According to the commonly used learning outcomes and standards, online reading outcomes for the Turkish Lesson Curriculum have been suggested. Before applying, the gains were finalized in line with the expert opinions. In the second part of the study, the action research process was carried out. During this process, activities were prepared in line with the achievements for online reading to be revealed in the model proposal. The prepared activities were applied for 11 weeks to 21 sixth grade students at a secondary school located in the city center of İzmir, which constitutes the study group of the research. At the end of the 11-week, a total of 1054 pages of data obtained from the students was included in the data analysis process. The obtained data were analyzed through content analysis method. The lessons prepared in line with the proposed model were described during this 11-week. In the quantitative part of action research; "Online Research and Reading Comprehension Scale" developed by the researcher, "Online Research and Reading Comprehension Achievement Test", and "Online Attitudes and Behaviors Scale" which was developed by Putman (2014) and adapted into Turkish by the researcher were used. In the qualitative part of the study, the "Researcher Observation Forms", "Student Diaries", and "Semi-structured Interview Forms" were used to explore students' opinions on the processed model. In addition, from the beginning to the end of the lessons, students' research was recorded by using the "OBS Studio" program. The quantitative data of the study, which was obtained from pre-test and post-test, was analyzed by "SPSS 23.0 for Windows". Then, the arithmetic mean and standard deviations of the pre-test and post-test scores of the study-group students were calculated and in-group comparisons were made. The obtained data were analyzed using the paired samples t-test and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The qualitative part of the study consists of ten themes based on the students' views and perceptions obtained from the teaching applied for online research and reading comprehension (Online Reading). These themes are to establish interdisciplinary relationships, use hypertext, associate with daily life, be interested in writing, contribute to spelling and punctuation, contribute to vocabulary, conduct effective research on the Internet, be online reading interesting and fun, collaborate with friends while reading online, and associate the Turkish lesson with other skills. At the end of the action research, it was concluded that, with the education carried out in line with the proposed model, the online reading levels of students increased, the lessons became more enjoyable, students' behaviors related to online reading and their attitudes towards Turkish lesson and online reading were affected positively. In short, it can be concluded that the applications made during the research process contribute to the development of online literacy skills of 6th grade students. Keywords: Online Reading, Digital Literacy, New Literacy Skills.