The effect of critical reading- writing training on the academic achievement and the critical reading-writing levels of Turkish language prospective teacher

In this study, the effect of critical reading-writing training on the academic achievement of reading comprehension and writing, and the critical reading-writing levels of the prospective teacher in the ?Comprehension Techniques I: Reading Instruction? and ?Presentation Techniques I: Writing Instruction? courses in the third-grade was tested.This research was conducted with 61 third-grade prospective teacher studying at the Department of Turkish Language Teaching at Mersin University, which is in Mersin and at Çukurova University, which is in Adana. The research was performed in an experimental group and in a control group. The implementation process lasted for ten weeks. Critical reading-writing training program was applied in the experimental group and traditional method was followed in the control group. The classes in the experimental group were given by the researcher and the classes in the control group were given by the respective academician. As the data collection tools, ?Critical Reading Achievement Test?, ?Writing Achievement Test?, ?Reading Comprehension Achievement Test?, ?Critical Writing Achievement Test? which were designed by the researcher, herself were used in the research. ?Reading Comprehension Achievement Test?, ?Critical Reading Achievement Test?, ?Writing Achievement Test? and ?Critical Writing Achievement Test? were used as a pre-test and a post-test in the experimental and control groups. The prospective teacher in the experimental group were asked to write about what they understood from the given text before and after the process so as to find out their comprehension levels. Besides, semi-structured interview forms were also used to obtain information about their reading and writing habits and to determine their thoughts about the implementation before and after the program.In the research, the quantitative data was analyzed through co-variance analysis and the significance level was considered as p<.05 in the analysis. The qualitative data was analyzed by content analysis.A significant difference in favour of the experimental group was found between the experimental group and control group in terms of mean scores of post-test when the pre-test scores received from the reading comprehension achievement test were taken under control. A significant difference in favour of the experimental group was found between the experimental group and control group in terms of mean scores of post-test when the total pre-test scores taken from the writing achievement test were taken under control. Next, a significant difference in favour of the experimental group was found between the experimental group and control group in terms of mean scores of post-test when the pre-test scores received from the critical reading achievement test were taken under control. Finally, a significant difference in favour of the experimental group was found between the experimental group and control group in terms of mean scores of post-test when the pre-test scores taken from the critical writing achievement test were taken under control.When the findings obtained from the reading text were considered, it was seen that the majority of the prospective teacher (27/31) in the experimental group before the training were not able to catch the deep meaning and misunderstood the message in the text. However, the majority of the teacher candidates (28/31) in the experimental group after the training was able to catch the deep meaning and understood the message in the text correctly.The teacher candidates who were interviewed stated that before the implementation of this program, they used previewing strategy before reading; marking and annotating strategies while reading and analyzing and evaluating strategies after reading. On the other hand, they expressed that after the implementation of this program, they used previewing and organizing strategies before reading, marking, annotating, and asking for comprehending, checking the comprehension and evaluating strategies while reading and analyzing, evaluating, summarizing-explaining, evaluating and comparing with other resources strategies after reading. The teacher candidates added that they used previewing, establishing context, checking the comprehension and evaluation strategies while they were reading critically. The teacher candidates who were interviewed before the implementation of critical reading-writing instruction program said that they made preparations through research, planned the sections in their minds, wrote the texts that they had read with their own expressions and reviewed the text by reading on their own or having a friend read it during the writing the text process. Nearly all of the prospective teacher (9/10) who were interviewed after the implementation of critical reading-writing instruction program told that they reviewed resources by doing preliminary investigation, organized the information by forming the limits of the content after considering these data and foreknowledge, planned the internal presentation of the knowledge and prepared a draft during the writing the text process. Most of the teacher candidates expressed that they considered the consistency and the integrity of the text and they wrote the text with an effective expression while writing the text. Considerable majority of the teacher candidates pointed out that they arranged the draft after looking through it and they made the necessary corrections after evaluating the content, integrity and clearness of the text. Almost all of the teacher candidates being interviewed stated that while writing critically, they did research from the reliable and valid resources of different perspectives; they reached to a judgment by analyzing the data they obtained and evaluating them with their foreknowledge; they explained their judgement by presenting the reasons and examples; they wrote the opinions for and against generalization and they evaluated the draft they prepared by considering the content and integrity of the text. Furthermore, the teacher candidates who were interviewed told that they found the implemented program effective with regards to meet the goals and useful since they could transfer it into their daily lives.