The effects of rapid reading technique on the eighth graders? reading speed and levels of reading comprehension

The main purpose of this research is to find out the effects of rapid reading techniques on the eight graders? reading speed and levels of reading comprehensiom in primary school.The sample studying group consists of 48 eighth grade primary school students who attended a state school in the first term of 2006-2007 academic year at Karşıyaka town of Izmir. There are four groups in this research; two of them are assigned as experiment groups and the other two are assigned as control groups.Besides primary school Turkish Language curriculum, rapid reading techniques were carried out in the experiment groups during six weeks, while the control groups only have had the Turkish Language curriculum.Research data has been gathered by reading speed and reading comprehension tests. The data gathering materials were carried out as a pre-test before the experimental activities, as a post-test after the experimental activities. Finally, they were carried out as a retention test after twelve weeks, when the experimental process was completed.The data analysis, which was collected by the materials was made by SPSS (version 11.5). A Kruskal Wallis test is used so as to determine if there is a meaningful difference between the groups before the experimental application. A covarience analyisis was used to find out any difference between the reading speed points and reading comprehension points. On the other hand, a Bonferonni comparison test was performed to determine the direction of change. p= .05 was accepted as meaningfulness level for commenting on the conclusions.The results of the analysis has showed that rapid reading techniques have positive effects on the students? reading speeds and comprehension levels.KEY WORDS:Reading, Reading speed, reading comprehension, rapid reading techniques.