Investigation of relationship between the reading habits and critical thinking skills of sixth, seventh and eighth grade students

The main purpose of this study is to identify relationship between the reading habits and critical thinking skills of sixth, seventh and eighth grade students. This is a descriptive study. The sample of the research consists of 200 students who study at the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades of the primary schools in Küçükçekmece, Istanbul. The data were obtained through "Data Sheet" and "Critical Thinking Scale" developed by the researcher. Descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation), t-test, one way ANOVA and Scheffe test were used in the analyses of data depending on the requirements of the study. Also, in order to determine the effect size , eta squared value was calculated. The main results of the study are as follows: 1.The mean of the scores obtained by students from Critical Thinking Scale is X = 63.71. This indicates that students have medium critical thinking skills. 2.The scores obtained by students from Critical Thinking Scale show a significant difference according to the variable of the number of books read in a year (p = 0.000 , p < 0.05). This difference stems from the students who read 15 or more books in a year. 3.The number of books read by students in a year, is quite effective on students' critical thinking skills (η2 = .096 ). Key words: Reading Habit, Critical Thinking