The effects of urbanization on the reading comprehension skills of sixth grade students

The migration which has come into our country's agenda since the 1960s, has been continueing as dependent upon technology. There are various socio- psychological and cultural reasons of this one-sided internal migration movement from the poorly developed and small settlement areas like villages and towns to our big cities like Istanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Adana and Diyarbakır. This situation creates different spheres of problem. One of the problematic areas which comes into surface depending upon the migration is education. If we regard that as the result of industrialism, this internal migration movement will not stop and most of the population will reside in city and town centres, today, in the big cities in which millions of people live, by providing the equal opportunity possibilities, in the field of education, the need for the activities aiming at providing everybody with proper and equal feasibility and making school functional, emerges naturally. For, in the twenty-first century, the number of present big city will increase. Generally, in Turkey, the education given in schools is based on reading- comprehension. In improving the students' reading-comprehension skill, the Turkish lesson which is based on the standard language and aiming at the education of the native language, has a significant role. Because the foundation of the other lessons is based on this standard language. This state increases the importance of the text-books written in the standard language, because in the Turkish lesson, after the curriculum and the teacher, the most important element is the Turkish text-books. In our country which has the urbanization problem, that the migrated people who live in the slums, surrounding the big cities like avalanche, come from the village- based families and speak generally in the local dialect, has brought about the students' inabilty in understanding what they read and their being unsuccessful, thus leading to their lack of integration with the city. The first factor in adapting to the city life is to have a job of good salary. This opens the way to child's being educated properly and his/her continueing the education beginnig with primary-school until his/her graduation from university. But, within the conditions of our country, the school is insufficient. Because, the opportunities of one school are different from the other's according to the level of development, in different regions, and moreover the instruction-education conditions in the some city are also different. In this study, taking these explanations into account, the effects of urbanization on the children's reading-comprehension skill, which is capable of influencing their future have been tried to be measured on the sixth grade students. At the end of the research, it has been proved that among the sample groups, the success of the students, who are being educated in the slum district of Mamak is rather low. Depending upon the low grades got from the test, if the results of the inquiries are evaluated, it appears that in this district the students generally live in the slums which have one or two rooms. Most of the students do not have a room of himself/herself. The studying opportunities of home are insufficient. Most of them do not have a personal library and they do not read regularly. They do not go to the library, either. The parents do not take part in the child's doing his/her homework. TheIV father tries to be interested in the child at coming home from work and this is not enough. Coming from the village, the families employ local dialect in a wide range. Although there is an inclination toward the nucleus family in all over the country, the tradition of wide family is frequent and the family members employ the local dialect. In the class, the children have difficulty in understanding the text-books and what the teacher tells. The parents generally have last graduated from the primary school. Most of the mothers are housewives and most of the fathers are workers. Most of the students in that district do not have newspaper or magazine in their houses. Although the success in the reading-comprehension test in the children of Keçiören and Altındağ quarters in which the families of middle income live is higher than Mamak, it is lower compared to Çankaya and the centrum. The highest grades taken from the reading-comprehension test belong to the students of Çankaya and the centrum. The highest success in the sample groups belongs to the centrum and the Çankaya central-town. So, the rate of success in the slum district Mamak, where the socio-economic level is not high is low. It is medium in Keçiören and Altındağ where there are, in general, the families of middle-income. In Çankaya and the centrum, which represent high income level, it is the highest. The most important factors in this are whether the student was born in village or in city, whether he/she has been going to the primary school in village or in city and whether he/she has been speaking in the standart language or in local dialect. Among the factors related to the family, socio-economic level, the education level of the parents, the habit of reading, employing whether the standard language or the local dialect can be considered. Among the other factors, the ownership of the house, the curriculum and related to this, whether the Turkish text-books carry the features making reading-comprehension difficult and the features making this easy can be regarded. The big city, with its opportunities, has either a positive or a negative impact on the students' reading-comprehension skill. This is especially negative in the Mamak district where the migration from village to city is obvious. It is positive in Çankaya and the centrum. In this, the family, the economic level of the family, environment, school, language and the technology of instruction-education have great roles.