Longitudinal Investigation of the Role of Reading Comprehension Skills in High School Entrance Exam Success

This study aimed to explore the effect of fifth-grade students’ reading comprehension skills on their success in the national central high school entrance exam taken in the eighth grade. The study used a longitudinal correlational survey design. The sample group consisted of 986 students studying in 46 middle schools in 17 cities, which are the branches of a private school company. The sample was relatively homogenous with 531 male and 455 female students coming from a middle-class socioeconomic background. The data on students’ reading comprehension skills were collected using reading comprehension tests administered in the fifth and seventh grades. No data could be collected in the sixth grade due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Students’ scores on the high school entrance exam (LGS in its Turkish acronym) that they took at the end of the eighth grade were received through the school administration. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and correlation and regression analyses. The analysis results yielded statistically significant correlations between students’ fifth- and seventh grade reading comprehension skills scores and LGS scores. They also showed that students’ reading comprehension skills are a significant predictor of their LGS scores.