The effect of empathic reading on the understanding of reading in secondary school 7th graders

This study aims to investigate the effect of the empathic reading technique, which the reader puts himself in the position of the hero, on reading comprehension for the 7th-grade students in secondary school. Quantitative and qualitative models were used together in this study. From the experimental and control groups, qualitative data obtained by interview and open-ended questions were converted to quantitative data and entered into the SPSS database and measurements were made. The story texts to be used in the research were determined by taking the opinions of three experts and three Turkish teachers. Open-ended questions for reading comprehension have been renewed by expert opinion and prepared according to Bloom's taxonomy. The study group consisted of 20 female and 20 male students from 7th-grade students of Uşak Central Imam Hatip Secondary School. The study group was divided as experiment and control groups in a random way that included both male and female students. A personal information form was distributed to the students before applying. For two weeks, the experimental group students underwent empathy activities under the supervision of a school counselor. The application texts were studied by the experimental and control groups synchronously and the questions were asked to be answered. The data obtained are planned by three different scorers and averaged. It has been observed that the results entered into the SPPS database were significantly higher than the data of the control group. Finally, in the interview with the experimental group, it was concluded that the students considered the technique of empathic reading as a technique that would help them to read without being bored for a long time and they wanted to use it in their subsequent readings.