The effect of text structure awareness on determining the main idea

Based on the assumption that text structure awareness is a prerequisite for reading comprehension, this study, which aims to reveal the effect of explanatory text structure awareness on the ability to identify the main idea, was conducted with a relational research design. The relationship between the level of explanatory text structure awareness and the ability to identify the main idea of 361 participants in the 10-12 age group was determined with the measurement tools developed by the researcher and analyzed with the regression analysis. Accordingly, text structure awareness is a significant predictor of the ability to identify main idea. There is a positive and moderate relationship between expository text structure awareness and the ability to identify the main idea. In addition, each of the sub-dimensions of text structure awareness (description, sequence, cause-effect, problem-solution, compare-contrast) was found to be positively and moderately correlated with the ability to identify the main idea. It was concluded that text structure awareness is one of the necessary preliminary types of knowledge for reading comprehension, inference making and main idea determination skills. Also, female students' awareness of expository text structure and main idea determination skills are higher than male students. While no significant difference was found in the awareness of expository text structure according to age variable, a difference in favor of 6th grade students was observed according to grade level. In the skill of finding the main idea, the age group of 12 years showed higher success than the age group of 10 years, and the 6th grade students showed higher success in the skill of finding the main idea than the 5th grade students. Students' ability to identify the main idea is below the expected level. Finally, according to the results obtained from the difficulty indexes, the order of text structures from easiest to most difficult is as follows: description, problem-solution, sequence, compare-contrast, and cause-effect. It is recommended to follow this order when teaching text structures.