Reading Strategies Used by Turkish Teacher Candidates in the Reading Process

Abstract

This study aimed to reveal which physical strategies (behaviors) Turkish teacher candidates prefer when reading a printed or electronic book/text, what kind of operations they perform related to the text and the reasons for these interventions. Hence, the opinions of 150 teacher candidates in the Turkish Language Teaching program of Istanbul Aydın University Faculty of Education in the spring semester of the 2021-2022 academic year were obtained through a semi-structured form developed by the researcher. Their opinions were analyzed with content analysis. The research was according to the phenomenology pattern. The behaviors of teacher candidates were personal reading strategies. They were classified and graded under various categories. The strategy for teacher candidates who prefer to read printed publications mostly is to make underlines. Then, strategies such as bookmark use and marking were more frequent. In the study, where sex and grade variables did not make a significant difference, some eccentric reading strategies (using a ruler while reading, taking a page/screen photo, using emoji, spraying perfume on the book, etc.) were also present. Finally, the study made various recommendations.