The effect of Socratic questioning-based critical reading activities on advanced reading awareness and its relationship with writing skills

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of Socratic questioning-based critical reading activities on 7th grade students' advanced reading awareness and to determine the relationship of this process with writing skills. Furthermore, it aimed to gather the students' perceptions of the activity process. The explanatory mixed design, one of the mixed designs, was used in the study. For this purpose, randomly selected 70 7th grade students from a secondary school in the centre of Antalya province participated in the study, with 30 students in the experimental group and 29 in the control group. Both groups took the "Advanced Reading Awareness Scale" in a pre-test and were asked to write a composition based on a topic from the "Writing Topic Determination Form". The experimental group underwent Socratic questioning-based critical reading activities for 8 weeks and writing activities for 4 weeks. After the implementation, both groups took the pre-test again in the post-test, and the quantitative data were collected. Finally, an interview was conducted with the students in the experimental group to gather qualitative data on the implementation of the activities. A second interview was held with students from both the experimental and control groups to gather information on the writing activities. The results of the study indicated that both the experimental and control groups had equal advanced reading awareness and writing skills prior to the study. The data from the experimental group revealed that the Socratic questioning-based critical reading activities significantly and positively impacted the students' advanced reading awareness. Although there was a descriptive improvement in the control group, this difference was not statistically significant. Moreover, the writing skills of both groups improved, with a descriptive and statistical difference observed in both the experimental and control groups. The students in the experimental group reported in interviews that the Socratic questioning-based critical reading activities were enjoyable, useful, supportive, and encouraging. They noted that the activities helped them develop skills in questioning, perspective-taking, reading habits, and expression. Regarding the writing activities, the students in the experimental group found them to be enjoyable, effective, entertaining, and helpful in developing their writing skills. Meanwhile, the control group reported that writing activities were conducted once a week using the textbook as a primary source. Overall, the findings suggest that Socratic questioning-based critical reading activities had a positive impact on the students' advanced reading awareness and writing skills.