Readability of texts in primary school Turkish coursebooks and their suitability for the target age level

Schools are institutions that can raise students as original individuals who are far from rote learning, who understand what they read, and who can think critically. It is known that the textbooks to be used are an important tool in the teaching process, and the relevant authors should prepare the books by taking into account certain criteria during the preparation phase. Texts suitable for the target audience increase children's interest in the lesson and make the teachers' job easier. It is important for a text to be prepared by taking into account individual differences, to have the same meaning for all students, and to be clearly understandable by the general public. Texts above the reading-comprehension level of students make reading and understanding difficult and also negatively affect children's performance in the lesson. In this context, readability is a tool to prevent these situations. This study was prepared to examine the readability of 2023-2024 1st-4th grade Turkish textbooks. It is being investigated whether the texts in the Turkish textbook are suitable for the student levels. The study model is a qualitative research design. During the research process, data was collected through document analysis. In the study, 70 texts were examined, excluding listening-watching texts, poems, tongue twisters and texts consisting of mutual dialogues. Ateşman (1997) (1997) and Çetinkaya-Uzun (2010) (2010) readability formulas were used in the study. As a result of Ateşman (1997) (1997) formulas, it was seen that the texts evaluated were diversified as 'easy', 'medium' and 'difficult' levels. When the findings were examined, it was determined that some of the texts in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade Turkish textbooks were above the student levels and the reasons for this situation were discussed.