The effect of literature circles on developing readingcomprehesion strategies and attitudes towards readingbooks

The general purpose of this research was to reveal the effects of the literature circle method on the development of reading comprehension strategies of primary school fourth grade students and their attitudes towards reading. This study also aimed to exaimed the literature circle's outcomes and products that emerged by the roles of the teachers and students in the teaching process based on the literature circle method were examined from an analytical point of view. The research was carried out in the first semester of the 2021-2022 academic year, with a total of 57 students from two fourth grade classes of a public primary school in Yüreğir in central province of Adana. The research was carried out in two randomly selected classes, which were assigned as the experimental and the control group. The experimental procedure lasted 14 weeks and teaching was carried out with the literature circle method in the that group and for the control group the current Turkish Course Curriculum was carried out. The quantitative part of the study was designed in a quasi-experimental design with a pretest-posttest control group, and the data were collected with the reading comprehension strategies scale and the reading attitude scale. The data obtained from the scales were analyzed by covariance analysis. In the qualitative part of the study, the outputs and products of the literature circle revealed by the roles of teachers and students in the teaching process based on the literature circle method were analyzed from an analytical point of view and the data were obtained with different tools. Researcher diary, self, peer and group evaluation forms, teacher observation form, project evaluation form and student role pages/reading diaries were used as qualitative data. The quantitative findings of this research showed that the literature circle method had a positive effect on the reading comprehension strategies of the students and their attitudes towards reading. This method provided a significant difference compared to the teaching within the current curriculum. Qualitative data brought up some important issues such as what the books to be read during the literature circle process, students' choosing the books to read and rehearsing before using the literature circle. In addition, sitting arrangement in the reading circle, off-topic discussions, voices during discussions, group members who did not fulfill their responsibilities were seen as important issues. For the evaluation phase, the research findings showed that the use of self, peer and group evaluation forms to cover the whole process is seen as an important issue. Keywords: Literature circles, reading comprehension strategies, attitude towards reading.