The effects of rapid reading techniques on the fifth graders' reading speed and comprehension levels

In this study the aim is to examine the effects of rapid reading techniques on fifth grade students' reading speed and comprehension levels. For this reason posttest control group quasi-experimental model was used in the study. The sample studying group is made up of 52 fifth grade secondary school students, 26 of whom belong to control and 26 of whom belong to experimental group attending to Kültür Primary Schools in the second term of 2012-2013 academic year in the provincial center of Bolu. In this research besides secondary school Turkish Language curriculum, rapid reading techniques were carried out in the experiment groups during eight weeks (32 hour), while the control groups only have had the Turkish Language curriculum.The data obtained in this study were collected through the detection of reading speed and reading comprehension achievement tests Data collection instruments were administered as a post-test at the end of the experimental procedure. Analysis of the data obtained were based on SPSS 18.0 package program. Having completed the study, "Unrelated T-test measurements" has been used to determine whether a meaningful difference emerged between experimental and control groups as to their levels of understanding narrative and informative texts at the end of the fast reading education and as to their academic success scores of Turkish lesson, also Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients has been used to indicate whether a meaningful relation between students' comprehension levels and reading speed emerged or not. As a result of the analysis it was observed that rapid reading education techniques has had positive effects on the students' reading speeds and comprehension levels. Keywords: Reading, reading comprehension, reading speed, rapid reading techniques.