An analysis of textbooks on the Turkish language for primary school 5th grades in terms of critical thinking

The purpose of this study is to determine to what extent the textbooks on the Turkish language for primary school 5th grades incorporate critical thinking strategies. With this purpose in mind, a review of literature was carried out. In the light of the data obtained via the review of literature, an inventory of critical thinking was designed by the author and finalized through learned opinion in order to determine to what extent the strategies are included. As well as the inventory of critical thinking, the deep meaning of the sentences were taken into account during the process of finding out to what extent the texts incorporate critical thinking. The study made an attempt to discover the extent to which the textbooks encompass 11 dimensions of the cognitive strategies regarding critical thinking.Based on a scanning model, the study included a content analysis. The population of the study is comprised of the Textbook on the Turkish Language for 5th Grades designed by the National Education Publishing and the Textbook on the Turkish Language for 5th Grades developed by the Erdem Publishing. The sample of the study consists of a total of 22 texts on individual and society, our values, innovations and developments, which are compulsory themes found in the textbooks. The content analysis of the texts included within the textbooks was conducted by the author and three referees. The findings from the texts were numerically tallied and presented in the frequency table. Kendall?s w test was used so as to determine the inter-reliability of the findings obtained by the author and the three referees. A meaningful correlation was observed between the findings obtained by the author and the three referees.The study concluded that the textbooks on the Turkish Language for 5th Grades designed by the National Education Publishing incorporated texts that could develop the critical thinking skills of students to a greater extent than the ones developed by the Erdem Publishing.