Comparison of Turkish reading and writing abilities of bilingual and monolingual children

This study, which aims to compare the reading and writing skills of bilingual and monolingual students enrolled in the fourth grade of primary school, is a quantitative research conducted within the framework of a descriptive survey model. The population of the study consists of fourth-grade students attending schools in Şanlıurfa during the 2023–2024 academic year, while the sample comprises 56 students, 28 bilingual and 28 monolingual attending the fourth grade of a public primary school affiliated with the Ministry of National Education in the Viranşehir district of Şanlıurfa. Data were collected through the Written Expression Evaluation Scale, the Reading Achievement Test (Test 1, Test 2, and Test 3), and reading fluency measurements. The data were analyzed using the SPSS software. Initially, the normality of the distributions was examined through the Shapiro–Wilk test. Depending on whether the data followed a normal distribution, descriptive statistics (arithmetic mean, standard deviation, minimum and maximum values) and relevant comparative tests were employed for the measurements. The findings of the study reveal that there are significant differences between the two groups in terms of reading comprehension achievement. According to the results of Test 1, a statistically significant difference in favor of the monolingual group was observed. However, in Test 2 and Test 3, although bilingual students had higher average scores in reading comprehension, the differences were not statistically significant. Similarly, when comparing the written expression skills of monolingual and bilingual students, monolinguals scored higher, but the difference was not statistically significant. Furthermore, no significant difference was found between the two groups in terms of reading fluency.