Critical reading is an important skill for individuals to understand what is happening in the world and to realize themselves. Societies with individuals with advanced critical reading skills reach a high level both socially and economically. These situations make the teaching of critical reading skills necessary and important. For this reason, in this study, it is aimed to evaluate the reading activities in the 5th and 6th grade Turkish textbooks in line with the critical reading criteria. The research was designed as a qualitative research and the data were collected by document analysis method. Reading activities in 5th and 6th grade Turkish textbooks constitute the documents of the research. Critical reading criteria list was used as data collection tool. The obtained data were analyzed by descriptive analysis. The criteria for making inferences and establishing a cause-effect relationship in the activities were among the prominent criteria. It has been determined that the activities in the textbooks do not meet all the criteria for critical reading, and some criteria are not included at all. It was concluded that the distribution of critical reading criteria included in the activities was not balanced. In this context, it has been stated that textbooks are not sufficient to develop critical reading skills and reading activities should be reviewed. For these reasons, suggestions have been made in line with the data and the results obtained.

Reading, critical reading, Turkish textbook, activity.