A research on elementary 8th grade students? reading habits and interests

In this research, it was strived to determine that elementary 8th grade students? reading interests, reading habits and relationship between reading interests and reading comprehension level. Survey model was used in this study.Population of this research is elementary 8th grade students who enrolled elementary schools in Ankara?s central counties (Altındağ, Çankaya, Etimesgut, Gölbaşı, Keçiören, Mamak, Sincan and Yenimahalle). Sample consists of 390 8th grade students from different socio-economic environment.During the research, ?Attitude Scale towards Reading Habit?, ?Reading Interest and Habits Questionnaire? and ?Reading Comprehension Tests? was used for gathering data. For analyzing the data, Descriptive Statistics (frequencies (f), percentage (%), Mean), T-Test, ANOVA, Kruskal Wallis and Mann Whitney U tests were used. In analyzing the data, SPSS 15.0 program was used. .05 significant level was accepted to standard level for comparing the data.The results of this research indicate that elementary 8th grade students? attitude level toward reading habit mostly ?high?. According to result of evaluation about students? reading habits and reading interests, it was observed that students? reading habits remains to their television viewing and because of examination (school exams and high school entrance exams), students not allocate enough time for recreational reading.It was founded that students was encouraged by their teachers and parents for reading. It was founded that the effects of libraries on developing reading habit is very ?low?. Elementary 8th grade students interested in adventure more than other topics and they prefer reading novel/story to other genre. According to reading comprehension test result, it was observed that students more successful at poem than narrative text and expository text. It was also observed that they more successful at narrative than expository text. In addition, there is a low relationship between attitudes toward reading habits and reading comprehension level.