Predictors of reading comprehension in Turkish:Evidence from 4th and 5th graders

This present study investigated the relationship between linguistic and cognitive skills, such as text reading fluency (TRF), vocabulary knowledge (VK), morphological awareness (MA), rapid automatized naming (RAN), processing speed (PS), and memory capacity (ME), and reading comprehension skills in 4th and 5th grade native Turkish-speaking students. A total of 42 fourth-grade and 52 fifth-grade students participated in the study, and the relevant linguistic and cognitive skills were measured using various tests. The data were analyzed using Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression analyses. According to the correlation analysis, a statistically significant relationship was found between reading comprehension skills and all linguistic and cognitive skills in fourth-grade students. In fifth-grade students, a significant relationship was observed between reading comprehension skills and all variables except for rapid automatized naming (RAN) and processing speed (PS). The results of the multiple linear regression analysis showed that morphological awareness (MA) and text reading fluency (TRF) were significant predictors of reading comprehension skills for fourth-grade students. For fifth-grade students, morphological awareness (MA) and vocabulary knowledge (VK) were identified as significant predictors of reading comprehension skills. These findings highlight the importance of morphological awareness in Turkish reading comprehension.