Examination of primary school students' motivation to read

In this study, it was aimed to examine the reading motivation of primary school 4th grade students in terms of various variables. The study, in which descriptive survey method was used, was carried out with 400 4th grade students studying in 4 public primary schools in Şehitkamil District of Gaziantep Province. The research was conducted during the 2022-2023 academic year. The "Reading Motivation Scale" developed by Wang and Guthrie (2004) was used as a data collection tool. This scale, which was translated into Turkish by Yıldız (2010) and re-adapted by Durmuş (2014) by explanatory factor analysis, was used in the research in line with the permissions obtained. As a result of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov normality test, it was concluded that the data conformed to the normal distribution, and as a result, T-Test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and LSD test were applied to determine which groups the differences were between the statistical analysis. T-Test was used to determine whether there was a significant difference according to gender, having received preschool education and having their own or a shared library at home. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test was used to determine whether there was a significant difference according to the educational status of the mother and father. With the analysis of the findings in the study, the reading motivation of female students was found to be significantly higher than male students. Reading motivation did not differ significantly according to maternal education level. However, it is possible to talk about significant differences according to the education level of the father. While children of fathers who are secondary school graduates have the lowest reading motivation, children of fathers who are high school graduates have the highest reading motivation. When the effect of preschool education factor on reading motivation was examined, it was seen that reading motivation was high in students who received preschool education, while this motivation was lower in students who did not receive preschool education. Significantly, it was concluded that the students who had their own library at home had higher motivation to read than the students who did not have a library at home. The results obtained were compared with other studies on reading motivation and suggestions were made in the conclusion section.